


Dead Reckoning

by jeanaly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Canon - Book, Drama & Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Quiet Isle, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13299057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanaly/pseuds/jeanaly
Summary: “I learned long ago that it does not do to dwell on all of the things that might have been.”“Then what does the little bird dwell on?” he asks quietly.“Many things,” she answers carefully. “My family, my home. And ever more lately, you as well.”





	1. Those Wings in Your Spine

Spring has arrived in King’s Landing. The sleepy city slowly stirs from its long hibernation. The markets are not full and bustling, not as they will be, but they are once again a living thing. From the Lion’s Gate to the Iron Gate, the smallfolk peek their heads into the streets, eager for a glimpse of sunlight, the kiss of a sweet southern breeze. The bravest children wander to the Blackwater Rush, bathing and swimming, no matter how cold the murky waters remain.

And as the beginnings of life sprout across the city, so blooms the Godswood. The trees stretch green-tipped fingers toward the sky, blue and bright once again, and little buds creep from beneath the mud, driven by that bold hunger that only youth can inspire. Murmurs of birdsong echo between the scraping of small paws as the residents search for new nests and new mates.

Now that it is the season of rain and warmth and awakening, Sansa spends much of her time in this place. Here, it is easier to forget her station. Here, it is easier to be lost and wandering, aimless but content. Here, it is easier to be alone, to be free, to be no one, to _be_. The sky was a pleasing pink when first she entered, the sun low on the horizon, but now it creeps ever higher, and she is expected to appear in court. With a sigh, she rises from the stone bench.

The doors to the Great Hall are still open as Sansa approaches. It has not yet begun; she is not late. A small fraction of the Queen’s Unsullied lines the steps like statues, unmoving and unnatural. These strange warriors have always left her feeling ill at ease, so she avoids their unseeing eyes.

Ser Jorah Mormont guards the door, and Sansa curtsies politely when she is near enough.

“My lady,” he says, offering a courteous bow. A small part of Sansa wishes to know this man better. Like her, Ser Jorah was born under the shadow of Weirwood, weaned on cold and snow and grey. He is a delicacy in this city.

“Good morning, Ser,” she replies with a cautious smile. She is homesick, here, and lonely, and the same old blood flows through her veins. Even Ser Jorah, dull and brutish as he is, could be a welcome distraction, but his time in exile has helped him take to warmer climates and foreign queens, and he does not forget that it was her father to send him fleeing from his birthright.

“The Queen and her Hand expect you, I’m sure.” His tone is aloof, perfunctory—a dismissal.

“Thank you, Ser,” she says, and she swallows the words that burn her tongue as she enters the Great Hall.

Court, as the Queen holds it, is a cross-section of King’s Landing. All of her subjects have equal footing, here—high lords stand comfortably with cobblers and cooks, noble wives next to whores and washerwomen. And though the Queen’s councillors are separate from the rest, they, too, stand on the same ground, flanking the steps that climb to the Iron Throne.

The Queen alone is elevated above the rest, there on that great platform, but even above her, the terrible skulls of long-dead Targaryen dragons loom like ghosts. Robert Baratheon—now called the Usurper—ordered them destroyed after he seized his crown, but they were hidden away by parties unknown, out of sight, lost and forgotten. When the Queen took the throne from Lannister traitors, the skulls were dusted clean and polished smooth to hang in the Great Hall once again. They are a reminder to all of the old might of House Targaryen, now reborn in its last daughter.

It is not long before the Queen finally arrives. Today, she wears a long, flowing dress of dark purple silk. It shimmers in the sunlight that streams through the high windows, and as she climbs to the throne, it swells and ripples in her wake. It will not tear when she is seated, though so many sharp points will bite; Mereenese silk is deceptively strong. Like her dress, Daenerys Targaryen is, at first glance, a tableau of womanly curves and exotic beauty, but Sansa knows she is shot through with steel and flame. The Queen’s face remains inscrutable as she addresses the court, and her dress settles about her, billowing like smoke, once she is seated atop the melted blades of her forefathers.

As the late morning bleeds into afternoon, Queen Daenerys and her council hold court. Together, they resolve to officially reopen the Blackwater Rush to the city’s fishermen, and address a grain shortage in Flea Bottom. Sansa shifts restlessly, adjusting her stance to ease her aching calves. Varys offers a coquettish smile as the Queen orders the right hand be taken from a young man who has been pilfering food from his master’s stall, but Sansa’s mind is soon drifting.

She watches the commons and the Queen’s council by turns. Ser Barristan, Lord Commander of the Queensguard, wears a mask of polite interest as Illyrio Mopatis negotiates taxes with a newly arrived Dornish envoy. Grand Maester Marwyn flashes a knowing smirk when Lord Varys makes an innuendo to an Essosi trader, something about ships and ports. For some time, Sansa is content to let her gaze wander aimlessly, but then the Hand of the Queen steps forward. 

Tyrion Lannister is an easy man to underestimate. His small stature and awkward gait often make him the target of mockery and ridicule, and he is undoubtedly the ugliest man in all of Westeros. But Sansa learned long ago that comeliness, or the lack thereof, is not the only making of a man. Tyrion has a sharp tongue and a sharper mind, and, despite their unusual arrangement, he is not the worst man she has been attached to. Though many in King’s Landing think it madness, the Queen values his opinion above all others, and allows him more liberty than she does most. He wears a strange look as climbs to the second step of the dais, as though he has been offered sweet cream but given curdled milk. Sansa cannot ever remember him looking so unsettled.

“It has been brought to the attention of the Queen and her councillors that a notorious outlaw has been found, here, in King’s Landing,” Tyrion states with a sort of practiced poise. His voice is not particularly loud, but he learned long ago to make himself larger than his frame allows, so it carries well. A chorus of whispers echo throughout the Great Hall, and suddenly, Sansa feels unsettled as well.

The doors that lead to Maegor’s Holdfast open with a great groan. A handful of the Queen’s Unsullied enter, surrounding a giant of a man bound in thick iron shackles; he moves slowly, and with an awkward gait that seems to be enhanced by his fetters rather than caused by them.

“This man you see is wanted for many crimes, most unspeakable in mixed company. Today, he shall see justice.” Tyrion turns to face Daenerys with a low bow. “He is yours to judge, my Queen.”

For a moment, the only thing Sansa can hear is the scraping of heavy iron, but as the man approaches the throne, his guards present their prisoner and part before the Queen. Now in plain view, a collective gasp arises from the court. He has been beaten bloody, but his state is not near so shocking as the scars that mar half his face. His eyes are cold and grey, and he stands straight-backed and silent, utterly unperturbed at his predicament. _A dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats_ , she remembers, unbidden. Sansa gasps too, and scrambles to move closer. She has to be sure.

The Queen rises slowly, and draws a deep breath.

“Sandor Clegane,” she says, voice frigid, “you have been called the Hound, but I much prefer to call you the Mad Dog. Your crimes are known throughout my kingdom—desertion, rape, murder, and worse. After my children feasted upon the monster once called your brother, I watched them turn your keep to ash, and I had thought the scourge of your house eradicated. Yet here you stand. I would have you answer for your crimes in front of my court and council. What say you?”

He moves only to face the throne, and stares at the Queen, defiant. There is only silence, at first, thick and heavy as a winter cloak. Sansa has come as close as she dares, heart galloping madly in her chest. She wonders that no one else can hear it. But then, there is a sound, soft as a whisper but growing ever louder. After some moments, the whole of Sandor Clegane trembles with laughter. It is rough as the scrape of steel on stone, and it is loud, the echo dancing from the skulls to the high ceiling and back down until it seems to surround Sansa. The Queen looks to her Unsullied, and nods. One draws his sword and uses the flat of it to bring Sandor Clegane to his knees. He laughs even louder at that and falls to his hands, head thrown back and body trembling madly as he gasps for breath. 

The Great Hall blurs, and Sansa falters. In an instant, it is Ser Boros’ sword, it is she kneeling with the sting, surrounded by white cloaks as the blonde bastard with the wormy lips smiles. Her dress is ripped away, a thousand dead eyes ogle her shame, and it is a rasping voice that speaks out. In an instant, she is back in Winterfell; she is warm and she is happy, sharing a featherbed with her long-lost sister, and they whisper the secrets that can only be uttered during the hour of the wolf. When her vision clears, a current of dread coils in Sansa's stomach. 

“Laugh, if it please you,” the Queen sneers, and he quiets at that. “It shall be your last choice among the living. I ask you once more—what say you?” 

Sandor Clegane stands, but with some effort, impeded by his shackles and his lameness. She cannot see him, his back is turned, but Sansa can _hear_ the cruel smile in his voice when he finally speaks. She has seen it a dozen times.

“Do you mean to wound me when you say you killed my brother? More’s the pity, for you have done me a great kindness!” He bows, and then laughs again, but only briefly. “If not for that, I would be a kinslayer before all.”

A cry of outrage rises from some corner, and within moments the court is loud and unruly as a winesink. _Murderer_ , they call him. _Blasphemer,_ they accuse. _Raper_ , they cry. _Kill him_ , they beg. _Killing is the sweetest thing there is_ , Sansa remembers.

“Silence!” Ser Barristan’s voice cuts through the crowd like a greatsword.

Daenerys smiles, now. “Have you nothing to say in your defense, Sandor Clegane?”

“My defense?” He spits, and Sansa watches, horrified, as his broad shoulders rise and fall with the action. “Would you have me proclaim my innocence? If I told you some raider stole my helm, would you believe me?” Sandor laughs a third time, bitter and cruel. “Not bloody likely.”

“I am not a tyrant,” the Queen says, “and you will be afforded every opportunity to—”

“If you want to kill me, Dragon Queen, end this farce and just kill me.”

_No,_ Sansa thinks. Her heart has leapt into her throat and stolen her voice, but her feet move of their own accord, pushing her forward. 

“Very well,” Daenerys says with a sigh, and Sansa’s footsteps quicken until she is nearly running, shoving those who do not move from her path. It is Varys who spots her, mouth whispering furiously as one plump hand reaches down to her husband, and Tyrion’s eyes search the crowd for a heartbeat until he finds her. His eyebrows draw up and his face contorts. He is confused; he is shaking his head furiously, even as the Queen continues.

“Tomorrow at dawn—“

“NO!”

She has found her voice. She is shaking. Every head in the Great Hall turns to Sansa, save one, and as the crowd backs away, she stands alone before the Queen and her council, flushed and panting. Fear grips her throat with pinching fingers. Perhaps this Queen is not mad, but she is stern and unforgiving; her face is bright with fury. Tyrion takes one step forward, a cautious hand extended the way one might approach a wounded beast, but he seems to think better of it. Daenerys Targaryen regards Sansa for a long moment.

“Lady Sansa,” she says icily, “I had not thought to seek your council on this matter, but as you have proclaimed it so fearlessly, perhaps you should like to illuminate us further.” 

Sansa glances at him again, but his back is still toward her. _Look at me_ , he was always growling. She takes a calming breath, willing her voice not to waver.

“Your Grace, if Sandor Clegane will not speak for his own innocence, I must.”

“Must you?” The Queen sounds amused, but Sansa can see the anger simmering in those purple eyes. “Pray tell, how could you possibly know such a thing about this man?”

“I—he—“ Sansa is stuttering, the fear seeping up from her throat and into her mouth. _A thousand eyes ogle her._ She has made a mistake, a horrible mistake; it is not the first time. She paid a high price for her youthful blunders, but always managed to escape mortal danger. This time, her rash behavior will be her undoing. Daenerys Targaryen is not an arrogant boy, nor is she some upjumped snake.

Then, he turns, and when his eyes find her she feels half a child, terrified of losing a game she never wanted to play in the first place. His face is blank, but Sansa is near enough to see the muscle near his mouth twitch once, twice. _If you ever tell anyone, I’ll kill you_ , he had threatened her, once. _They’re all afraid of me,_ he had promised her, once. She can almost feel the bite of his dagger at her throat. She can almost hear the rasp of his voice.

Sansa draws a deep breath, and clasps her hands together so as to steady their trembling. “This man, Sandor Clegane, is known to me,” Sansa says. Daenerys does not speak, so she continues. “It was here, in King's Landing, that I learned of his character, Your Grace. He did not commit these crimes.”

His gaze is heavy upon her. She can feel it as keenly as the summer sun, burning her neck and her cheeks, but Sansa keeps her eyes fixed on the throne. The Queen’s face is stoic, and she is silent as a crypt.

“Your Grace, perhaps this is a matter best discussed in the Chamber of the Small Council.” It is her husband’s voice, and she looks to see him staring at her as if she has grown a second head. She has never been so grateful.

“An excellent idea, my Lord Hand,” Varys says, ever the intercessor. “If the girl truly has evidence to speak, we must hear it, Your Grace.”

“Perhaps you are right, my Lords.” Daenerys says with a smile, her purple gaze piercing Sansa.

 

* * *

 

The walk through the Red Keep is uncomfortable. The Queen and Tyrion lead the procession, flanked by Ser Barristan and followed closely by Varys, Illyrio, and Grand Maester Marwyn. Sansa walks alone behind them, her mind reeling and her whole body trembling with worry. She has not felt such fear in many years; not in the Vale, dancing in Littlefinger’s shadow, not even in Winterfell, with the dead at their gate.

He walks a few paces behind her. She can hear the scrape and creak of him—one foot dragging, and above it all the shackles biting. His eyes have not stopped their staring; she can still feel his brand upon her neck. Her cheeks burn with it. It is unnerving, to be so near to him after so many years, yet unable to turn and speak to him.

When they near the Chamber of the Small Council, her husband pauses, turns, and places a hand on Sansa’s arm. “A moment, if it please your Grace,” he says, and the Queen nods.

Sansa waits next to Tyrion as Sandor Clegane approaches, surrounded by Daenerys’ Unsullied. He is close enough to see clearly, now, and she is impaled by the fury he emanates. He smells of grime and blood, and as she watches him enter the chamber, she remembers a night when the sky burned bright and green and livid. _I only know who’s lost_ , he had said.

But then the great oak doors close, and Tyrion pulls her into a sunlit alcove, and she is back.

“Sansa, I—“ he draws a deep breath and sighs, looking up at her. “I cannot hope to understand what you thought to accomplish by causing such a scene.”

She flushes deeper, and keeps her gaze fixed on the stones beneath her feet.

“Daenerys is a good queen, but she is a _queen_ , Sansa, and she will not be amused by your outburst. I cannot imagine what madness possessed you in the Great Hall. You have put yourself in a precarious position.”

_Sing for your pretty little life_ , she remembers.

“I would so hate to find myself without a wife,” Tyrion quips, tongue forever sharp, but his mismatched eyes are fearful. “I do hope you know what you’re doing.”

Sansa cannot find any solace to ease her own anxieties, so she smiles weakly to her husband and marches to the chamber. She keeps her head high and her shoulders squared.

Inside, Sandor leans against a far wall, surrounded by Unsullied. He is the inverse image of Danaerys, who stands behind the long table, surrounded by her council. Tyrion takes his place at the Queen’s right side, and Sansa stands pinned between all of them. Once again, every eye in the room is focused on her. She is not sure how to begin, but she knows she must speak first. Hands shaking, she steps forward and says the only thing to come to mind.

“Your Grace, I must beg your forgiveness.”

“Yes, I suppose you must,” Daenerys hisses. There is no need for courtesy or pretense any longer.

Sansa kneels on the cold stone, cheeks aflame, and Tyrion’s warnings run through her mind continuously. “I ought never to have contradicted you, my Queen, and I am forever indebted to your generosity.”

“Indeed,” Daenerys muses. “You may be Lord Tyrion’s wife, but foremost, you are my hostage. Of course I shall not harm you. The none of us should like to see little Lord Rickon follow his eldest brother’s path.”

Sansa cannot think of a response, so she bows her head meekly, and waits. For some moments, she can hear only her own shallow breath.

“Rise, Lady Sansa,” the Queen says after a time. She wears a magnanimous expression as she takes her own seat at the center of the table. “And know this—it is only for the sake of your husband. The next time you will not find me so forgiving.”

“I thank you, your Grace.”

“Enough of this groveling,” Ser Barristan barks. “You say you knew this man, Lady Sansa.”

The old knight has been giving orders for most of his life, and Sansa knows enough of his sort to recognize a command when one is given. “Yes, Lord Commander,” she says.

“I was in King’s Landing for much of your betrothal to my rotten nephew,” Tyrion says. “You were little more than a child, my Lady.”

The implication hangs between them, and Sansa takes a small step forward. “You may recall, my Lord Hand, that Joffrey delighted in causing me discomfort, or worse.”

Tyrion hesitates. “I do,” he admits.

“I seem to recall ugly stories,” Varys simpers, “knights of the Kingsguard beating you in public, stripping you bare—”

“A disgrace,” Ser Barristan snaps. “And was not Clegane a member of this Kingsguard?”

“He was, Lord Commander, but he never hurt me. Joffrey thought me terribly afraid of—of Clegane, so he was often my escort throughout the castle.”

“But you did not fear him?” Varys asks. His tone is all soft concern and intimacy, but Sansa mislikes this man. There is a shrewdness buried under so many layers of silk and perfume.

“Not truly. He was coarse and ill-tempered, and often drunk,” she says, and she can hear the rasping chuckle from behind her. Her cheeks flush traitorously, but she continues. “I feared his temper, but he was not unkind. He spoke truths to me that none else in King’s Landing would have dared.”

“Truths?” Her husband’s face is flushed in anger; he has mistaken her words for an accusation.

“Yes, my Lord. He helped me to understand the danger I faced and he—”

Varys interrupts with a wry smile. “Ah yes, I can just picture it—the great and fearsome Hound, rushing to save a beautiful young maiden! Why, someday the bards shall sing of it!”

Sansa feels a flash of frustration. “Please, Lord Varys, it wasn’t like some song.”

Daenerys nearly laughs, jaw clenched tight. “No?”

“No! He—” Sansa stops. She must control her temper. “Forgive me, I only mean to say that he helped me.”

The room is silent. The Queen and her council stare expectantly.  

“After my father’s execution, I was desolate,” Sansa begins. “I grieved for him, of course, and I was terribly frightened, but you must understand that I also grieved for Joffrey. I had convinced myself that I loved him, but I did not know him for true until that day. I found myself suddenly alone, and I was ill-prepared.”

“And do you mean to convince the Queen and her council that it was Joffrey’s own Hound to prepare you?” Tyrion asks. Deep in the cavern of Sansa’s chest, her anger and her frustration curl, molt, and bloom. They mock her, all of them, even her own husband.

“He told me to give Joffrey what he wanted. Defiance only made him angry, and anger only made him cruel.”

“Astounding!” Varys smirks. “My dear friends, who among us could have guessed the Hound capable of such insight!”

Poorly-stifled laughter echoes throughout the room, and this time, the Queen does not bother to suppress her amusement. But her husband stares at her plainly, face utterly devoid of mockery or mirth.

“I almost killed him, once!” Sansa exclaims, frustration bubbling over.

“The Hound?” Ser Barristan scoffs.

“No,” she says quietly, "Joffrey."

Again, the room is silent. She shuts her eyes to it before she continues.

“He took me to see my father, his—what remained of him. I didn’t want to look, so Joffrey made Ser Meryn Trant hit me until I opened my eyes. I felt sick, and angry, I…I wanted to kill him. I stepped forward, intending to push Joffrey off the ledge and onto the battlements below, and the—he knew, somehow. Sandor Clegane stepped between us, stopped me. I would have died, either falling behind him or…”

Sansa shudders, and stifles the briefest thought of her father, kneeling on the Steps of Baelor. “But it was only the first time he saved my life.”

“There was another?” Ser Barristan asks.

“The riot!” Tyrion exclaims. His eyes are wide, and he looks at Sandor Clegane accusingly.

“They were just hungry,” Sansa sighs, “but if he had not—I could have been killed, or worse.”

“So you speak for him because you think you owe him some debt?” Tyrion asks carefully. “He saved your life, and now you mean to save his?” She can see his words for what they are, but she needs no help to escape this.

“No, my Lord Hand,” she says quietly, eyes downcast. “Not a debt, but the truth. He did not commit those horrible crimes.”

“How could you possibly know such a thing, child?” Illyrio Mopatis asks.

“Because my sister, Lady Arya of House Stark, left him for dead just days before the—before Saltpans,” she finishes lamely.

“Your sister?” Tyrion asks. The shock he wears plainly is mirrored in every face at the table.

“She travelled for some time with Sandor Clegane, during the War of the Five Kings,” Sansa says. “He meant to ransom her, but after—soon there was nowhere to go. They wandered about for some time before he was wounded in a fight, and he could neither sit a horse nor lift a sword when Arya left him.”

“And she told you this herself?” the Queen demands.

“Yes Your Grace. We were together a short while in Winterfell, before I…well, during the Long Winter,” Sansa says. “She told me many things.”

“How are we to trust the words of your sweet sister,” Illyrio asks archly, “when she is not here to speak them herself?”

“If you knew my sister, you would not be so quick to call her sweet.” Sansa smiles. “She had no love for Sandor Clegane. She tried to kill him, more than once, and left him to die slowly rather than end his suffering.” A barking laugh startles her, and when she turns, he flashes a terrible grin.

“I knew little of Lady Arya, but she was a wild girl by all accounts,” Tyrion posits.

“But I am inclined to ask the same question, my Lady—how are we to trust your word only?” Ser Barristan insists, folding his arms across his breastplate.

“We cannot,” Grand Maester Marwyn proclaims, speaking for the first time since they have entered the Small Council Chamber. “The girl must speak for herself. Summon her here, if it please Your Grace.”

“But the snows have scarcely melted above the Neck,” Sansa protests. “It is a perilous journey!”

“If _your_ testimony is to be believed, girl,” Marwyn demands, “then this Lady Arya must needs give her own.”

“My Lords, Your Grace—”

Daenerys rises abruptly. “I have heard enough. If you wish to save this madman’s life, Lady Sansa, you will write to your sister and summon her here. She will speak to my council and attest to his innocence, or Sandor Clegane will be executed.”

Her tone invites no contradiction.

“As you wish, my Queen.”

“Sandor Clegane,” Daenerys says, “Your life is spared, today.”

Every knot of anger and frustration and fear that had twisted within her snaps, and Sansa feels relief for a breath, until—

“But you are not a free man. Lord Varys, see that he is comfortable in the Black Cells.”

She turns swiftly, and watches helplessly, rooted in horror, as he is dragged from the chamber forcibly. Even beaten and shackled, it takes four of the Queen’s Unsullied to move him. His face contorts with rage and his eyes meet hers, deadly and glinting like the polished tip of a silver blade. Sansa does not look away.

 


	2. Secret Songs That You Keep Wrapped in Boxes So Tight

The days that follow are uneasy.

In the light of the sun, Sansa is a shadow. She does not attend court, she cannot possibly show her face after such a shameful display, and a part of her thinks her husband is the gladder for it. She seeks comfort in the godswood, but finds none. If she does not dine alone in her chamber, she joins Tyrion in his solar, but she speaks little and eats less. He, in turn, speaks only in passing, offering small bits of gossip when their silence is too stifling; he has not said one word about Sandor Clegane. There are times when he studies her face like a maester examining a scroll. She can see so many questions dance behind his mismatched eyes, but thus far, he has swallowed them all, and she will not offer any explanations.

Under the shadow of the moon, Sansa is tormented. Her sleep is restless and hard-won at that. Some nights, she dreams of her past; of grabbing hands and pinching fingers, of garlic breath and wormy lips, of snow and death, green flame. Some nights, she dreams of her guilt; of a hulking darkness, of swelling storm clouds, of so many eyes staring, so many voices accusing. No matter what shape her dreams take, she always awakens in a panic, gasping for breath.

Nearly a fortnight has passed in this manner, and still Sansa has had no response from her sister. One morning, impatience overwhelms her, so she decides to visit the rookery. When she enters, she recognizes the maester feeding the ravens dried corn and chunks of pale meat. He is a young man with sandy hair and dark eyes, and though he has only been in King’s Landing a half dozen moons, he has helped her send many letters to Winterfell.

“Ah—Lady Sansa,” he says, offering a small bow by way of greeting. “What brings you here today?”

“Maester Godric,” she replies. “Forgive the intrusion, I only came to inquire if you have received a raven from Winterfell?”

The maester frowns. “Why, yes, my Lady—it arrived some days ago. Forgive me, but we were instructed to deliver it to the Queen and her Hand directly. I had thought—”

“I see. Thank you, Maester,” she says, suddenly unable to find a single crumb of courtesy.

For a moment, she feels badly, but she turns on her heel regardless. As she crosses the lower courtyard, a spark of anger lights in her chest. As she climbs the serpentine, she is blazing, white and furious. When she finally reaches the Tower of the Hand, she is aglow with smolder. From the window in her bedchamber, Sansa can see Maegor’s Holdfast. Within those walls, she knows, is the Traitor’s Walk, the entrance to the subterranean dungeons of the Red Keep. Somewhere down there is Sandor Clegane, and Sansa feels her rage reignite, so she summons her handmaid and has a bath drawn.

And as she bathes, Sansa thinks. She is desperate to see her sister’s letter, but she is certain that if it is in the Queen’s possession, she will never lay her own eyes upon it. Tyrion must know the contents. If Arya has refused to appear in King’s Landing, mayhaps he has tried to spare her the— _No, no,_ she thinks, stifling the fear that surges at that. _There would have been an execution_. But if Arya has agreed, why would Tyrion withhold that? _The Queen has never trusted me, now even less, so she has ordered him to keep silent_. Sansa pauses, and the sting of her lye soap brings her mind back to the present. The sky behind her small window is dusky. Her husband will soon return.

She exits her bath and wraps herself in a silk dressing gown. As she brushes her hair, she examines her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks are nicely flushed from the heat of the water, but her disquiet and sleeplessness have given them a gaunt cast, and purple shadows bloom beneath her eyes. _No,_ she thinks, _this will not do._

She summons her handmaid again. “Tell my husband that I will join him for his evening meal,” she says. “And tell the kitchens to send a flagon of strongwine.”

Sansa dresses deliberately. She picks a pale grey gown, a gift from Tyrion not long after they returned to King’s Landing. The neckline is just barely the right side of proper, and he likes to see her wear it. She lets her hair hang, long and loose and curling, and pinches her cheeks until they are once again pink and bright. She places a drop of rosewater on each wrist, between her breasts, at her collarbone, and behind her left ear.

The hearth in Tyrion’s solar burns low and steady. Winter may have ended, but even in King’s Landing the nights still have a chill, so the room is comfortably warm. He is seated at the small mahogany table, holding a half-drank goblet. The table is set, but their food has not yet arrived, and when Tyrion sees her, he rises.

“My Lady,” he says, and she leans down so that he may kiss her cheek, as he is wont to do.

“I hope you have had a pleasant day, my Lord,” Sansa answers.

“It was…” he trails off with a sigh. “It was decidedly unpleasant. I should like to forget all about it.”

Sansa smiles, and grasps the flagon. She fills her own goblet just slightly before adding to his. “Then you shall,” she says, and her husband drinks with a smile of his own.

Tyrion has emptied it twice before a servant enters, carrying a wide platter of honeyed chicken roasted with carrots, turnips, and onion, all surrounded by a few thick, fluffy biscuits. Sansa rises, and takes the tray carefully. It is heavy, so she sets it in the center of the table. “Thank you,” she says. “We will not require anything further this evening.” The servant nods, bows, and then leaves.

She collects her husband’s plate, and places an entire breast atop a mound of turnips. He gives her a queer look, eyes narrowed to arrowslits, but eats it just the same. She has only one lone carrot before slathering some soft butter atop her biscuit. It is still oven-warm, and she pulls small pieces off to eat one-by-one. He continues to watch her, curious, and drains a third goblet of strongwine before speaking.

“Is the food not to your liking, my Lady?” Tyrion asks.

“I find I am not terribly hungry this evening, my Lord,” Sansa replies, demure.

“Are you unwell?”

“No, but I thank you for asking.”

His face sours. “Then tell me, what is it that troubles you tonight?”

“Do not concern yourself,” Sansa says. “It is nothing at all.”

“Sansa, you are my wife,” he huffs. “If something distresses you, it is my duty to help if I may.”

“Of course, forgive me,” she says. “I only find my mind full of questions, and I am not sure which to ask you.”

“I want you to always speak freely to me,” Tyrion says, apprehensive.

“As you wish,” Sansa replies. She averts her eyes and swallows a small sip of her wine before continuing. “Have I been a good wife to you?”

Tyrion shrinks, grips his goblet tightly. “A good wife? Why would you think you hadn’t been?”

“You are my only friend in this city, Tyrion, and I fear I have made you quite angry.”

“Sansa, please,” he says, “I am not angry with you.”

“You’re not? Not even after... ”

Tyrion frowns, stares at his chicken a long moment. “I suppose angry is not the proper word. I could never be angry with for speaking your mind, nor could I be angry that you have tried to save a man’s life. I confess I am…frustrated, that you made such a spectacle of it. It was a foolish thing to do, but it was honorable.” He sighs, and a sad smile slinks across his face. “But then, I should expect no less from a daughter of Ned Stark.”

She ignores the way her pride bristles at that. “So you are not angry?”

“I promise you, I am not.”

“Very well,” Sansa says. She returns her attention to the biscuit on her plate, waiting with each mouthful. He has nearly finished his own plate before he yields.

“Something still troubles you?” Tyrion asks.

“Yes,” she admits. “I do not wish to upset you, it’s only…I have asked you for very little since we returned to King’s Landing. Small things, of course—fabric to make gowns, books to read, and the like. But I have never asked to leave, and I have tried so very hard to be dutiful.”

He eyes her warily over the rim of his goblet, but he does not speak.

“Tonight,” she continues, “I must needs ask you for something that is not so small.”

“What is it, then?”

“I would like to speak with Sandor Clegane.”

Tyrion sets a hand on the table with a loud thump, and looks at her shrewdly. “Why do you ask this of me?”

“Because I need your help, my Lord.”

“The Hound is in the Black Cells, Sansa, I cannot just walk you in with his supper!” He smirks at his own cleverness. “And even if I _could_ , I would not let you visit a big, ugly brute who has killed, and worse.”

She nearly forgets herself, but she swallows her laugh before it escapes. _He is drunk and askew_ , she thinks. _There is no better time._ “You mistake me, Tyrion,” Sansa replies. “I ask for your help, not your permission.”

He chuckles at that. “I admire your conviction, my Lady, but I cannot help you.”

“You can,” Sansa insists. “There are many ways to travel this keep, and I know you possess an intimate knowledge of the hidden ones.”

She delights in the way he gapes at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed like a fish, even as all of the color flees his face. “Sansa, I—“

“There is no need to explain, my Lord,” she says, calm and composed. “It is no great secret. I spent many years a bastard. I learned to listen, and to observe.”

“I never meant for you to—”

“I do not mind, Tyrion,” she says, and he seems unnerved by her insistence if the white-knuckle grip of his chair is any guide. “You were given no choice in marrying me from the start, nor again in making me your wife for true. It is quite normal, I think, for husbands to seek their pleasure in many places.”

A strange look flashes over his face so quickly Sansa nearly misses it, but then he is relaxing his fingers and meeting her eye again. “There is a way,” Tyrion mumbles, “but I must admit, I am quite confused as to the nature of your friendship with the Hound.”

Sansa laughs. “And I would argue that friendship is not the proper word, my Lord.”

“Then what _is_ the proper word?”

Sansa pauses here, and arranges her words carefully before continuing. “He saved my life, and he saved my sister’s life,” she settles for. “There are…many things I must needs say to him. Even if his life is spared, I will never leave this city. I may never have a better chance.”

“Gods, but you say that like he is some hero,” Tyrion scoffs. “Forgive my doubt, Sansa, but I knew the man many years. He was a great fighter, a great drinker, many things and more—ill mannered, quick-tempered, by all accounts, thoroughly vile. I cannot quite reckon the man you describe with the man I knew.”

“He is all of those things, Tyrion, but he is _also_ the man I described. ‘Save yourself some pain. Give him what he wants.’” When he does not answer her, she smiles. “He said that to me, the first time Joffrey visited me after my father’s execution,” she says. “’They’re all liars here, every one better than you.’ I never forgot.”

Tyrion laughs again. “Sansa, you must admit it is peculiar.”

Sansa drops her gaze to where her hands are folded neatly on her lap. There are other things she might say, things that would help him to understand more clearly; she burns to speak of that night, when he came to her. _I could keep you safe_ , he had promised. But it has been no trifle to share so many parts of herself, and even here, with her husband, she feels the same reluctance still her voice. She could not even speak of it to her sister, her wild little sister who knows nearly all, who told her so many awful things. No, that night shall remain between the two of them alone, and none else. 

“Is it so peculiar to be grateful?” Sansa asks.

“You do not _owe_ him anything!” Tyrion snaps, frustration seeping through.

 _A hound will die for you, but never lie to you_ , she thinks. _And he’ll look you straight in the face._

“I owe him the _truth_ , if nothing else, and there are many things I must needs say to him,” Sansa insists. “Things to make right.”

Tyrion grumbles quietly as he reaches again for the flagon. It is nearly empty now, and as he gulps, the only other sound is the fire snapping and sputtering.

“What is it you hope to gain from this?” he asks dolefully.

“I do not wish to gain anything,” Sansa answers.

“And if I help you? Can you promise me that this will be the last I ever hear of Sandor fucking Clegane?”

There is a swelling of triumph within her chest, but Sansa keeps her face still. “Yes, my Lord, I swear it.”

“Very well,” he says with a wave. “Give me a few days’ time.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Sansa says with a genuine smile. She rises slowly. “I think I shall retire early tonight.”

“Yes, I think that’s best,” Tyrion agrees.

She makes to leave his solar, but pauses. “Just one last question, if it please you.”

“Yes?” he asks.

“Shall I expect all of my letters to be delivered directly to the Queen?”

He laughs from behind his goblet, sending a mouthful of red wine showering over his doublet. “Gods, but you have grown bold of late, my wife. So long as the rest of your letters do not concern the sentencing of a wanted outlaw, they shall be yours alone.”

Sansa curtsies. “That is most kind. When shall I expect my sister, then?”

“I should think before the next moon,” Tyrion answers. He opens his mouth to speak, and almost stops himself. “You must know that Daenerys thinks me inclined to trust you implicitly, though I can see now what a fool it makes me.”

“There are worse things to be than foolish, my Lord,” she allows. “Good night.”

“Sleep well, wife.”

And for the first time in many nights, Sansa thinks she will.

 

* * *

 

It is three days before she sees Tyrion again. Sansa has kept to her own bedchamber, partly to deny him the chance to break his promise, but mostly to spare him the sight of the hope she tends so cautiously in her chest that it must be a banner across her face.

Her maid finds her with a small curtsy, and says, “The Hand requests your presence for the evening meal, m’lady.”

He awaits her in his solar, but the room is much changed from her last visit. The hearth is empty, their meal is already set out upon the table, and though she sees a flagon, this one holds a pale sweetwine. He does not rise to greet her, nor does he drink any wine, and so for some time, Sansa stands at the end of the table as a buzzing anxiety grows louder in hear ears.

“I had hoped you would come dressed more sensibly, but here we are,” Tyrion says finally, eyeing the gauzy cream gown she wears. She begins to ask what he means, but he lifts a hand to interrupt. “No matter. Shall we?”

“Tyrion, I—”

He laughs at her confusion. “You asked for my help, and now you shall have it.”

Abruptly and without any further explanation, he walks to the empty hearth. He sticks his hand into the cold remains of a fire and fishes about blindly, until he pauses, and then his arm is sinking deep. Sansa gasps when the stone at the back of the hearth shudders, lifts, and then vanishes, revealing a black opening. Tyrion steps over the ash and turns to face her.

“There are rungs cut into the stone,” he says, “but descend carefully—we will not have any light until we reach the bottom.”

She nods and approaches. When his head disappears below, she crouches and slips through the opening, reaching around with one tentative foot until she finds the small hollow.

“There is a latch, just to your right,” Tyrion says. She feels about on the cold stone until she finds a smooth wooden handle. “Good, pull it down.”

And when she does, the light from his solar narrows, until the trap door has fully closed and as he promised, they are in complete darkness. Sansa does descend slowly, and to keep her mind occupied she counts the steps she takes.

At two hundred and nine, she notices a dull glow beneath her. At three hundred and thirty-six, she can see the handholds, knotted like a spine. By three hundred and ninety-four, she can see the floor below them, and at four hundred and twenty-three, she stands on a tile floor in the center of a circular room. There is a brazier burning, and somehow, Tyrion has produced an oil lamp. She can see that they are at the terminus of six branching pathways, five paved in stone and one just dirt, trampled down like a horse path.

“Follow me, then,” he says as he disappears into the darkness.

Sansa follows, heart shuddering in her chest. She dares not ask exactly how he knows which path to follow—her request has put a great strain on what little affection there was between them, and a part of her does not truly want to know in the first. She loses track of the moments as they walk, but soon, the passage becomes cooler and damp. The walls are only dark, wet earth held up by rotting wood. She wonders just how many years have passed since this path was first hollowed out, and how many more it will last.

When Tyrion stops short some while later, Sansa nearly barrels into him. He turns to face her, and extends the lantern.

“There is a door here,” he says, and holds one hand out in front of him to show her. “From this side, you need only a steady push to enter, but once you are through, it is not so simple. There is a false stone that hides the latch.”

“How will I know which stone it is?” Sansa asks.

“It is carved of wood, so you must needs feel them. You’ll be wanting the light, too—it will help you to find your way back, and there are no torches in the black cells. And this,” he says with a flourish, “is the key you’ll need.”

“Which cell is his?”

“As he is the only resident, I think you will not struggle to find it,” Tyrion says. His voice is wry, but his face is lined with concern. “Please be careful, Sansa.”

“He will not hurt me,” she says with a smile. She walks to the hidden door and pushes firmly. As he told her, it opens easily, silently. Before she shuts it, she looks at him. “Thank you, Tyrion.”

He nods just once, and then walks away briskly.

She makes her way down the hall cautiously. The floor is uneven, and the only light is the pale flicker of her lantern. She passes many cells, but all of their doors are wide open, the chambers inside empty. It is some minutes before she finds his, and the door opens with a heavy groan. Her heart jumps to her throat as she waits for some sign that someone has heard, but she hears no distant voices in the silence of the corridor, and after a moment to steady her nerves, she enters.

The darkness inside is oppressive. There are no windows, and Sansa cannot see much of anything in the dim orange glow she carries, just shapes and shadows. For a heartbeat, she stands there, disoriented and unsure. But then he speaks.

“Little bird.” It is not a question. “What are you doing here?” Even his rasping voice seems dull and muted in the glum of his cell.

 _Little bird._ She had nearly forgotten about that—he meant to be cruel, of course, but after a time, this name he gave her carried a strange sort of esteem.

“How did you know it was me?” Sansa asks, unnerved.

“Who else could it be sneaking to the Hound’s chamber?” He laughs, and it is a bitter sound, cold as ice cracking. “The Imp? The Queen? Not bloody likely. No, little bird, you’re the sweetest thing I’ve smelled since they locked me in this kennel.”

Sansa is not quite sure what to say. She had nearly forgotten that, too—he was always so forthright, back then, prodding at her until she lost her composure. She can feel her own silence heavy as an anvil around her neck, so instead of speaking she clutches the oil lantern and inches closer to him.

“What do you want? Come to get a good look, is that it?” He stands, suddenly, and turns to face her. His ruined face twists into a sneer. “Come to admire your work? Well, take your peep and be on your way.”

So Sansa does look. He is as tall and imposing as she remembers, but he is also ragged. His clothes are tattered, smeared with grime and frayed all about the edges. His hair hangs longer than last she saw it, but it is dull and limp from so many days without washing. He is barefoot and his feet are near black with filth. One ankle is bound to a chain by a thick, rusted shackle, and the skin beneath has chafed raw. His face is the same, and it is not—half, the ruin she remembers, slick and red and angry; half, drawn and hollow, shadowed by a scruffy beard. A chipped bowl rests at the edge of his thin straw pallet, holding only the dried remnants of some gruel, and next to that, a crude bucket. The air is thick as winter wool, and it stinks of rot and shit. A tide of shame sets her cheeks afire; it was _her_ to put him here.

“I would have come sooner,” she mumbles, “if I could have, but—”

“Still chirping?” he barks. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come?”

“I _had_ to,” Sansa says softly. “There are many things I would say to you.”

His eyes narrow, but he sits on the straw and folds his arms across his chest. “Go on, then.”

Sansa’s head is empty and heavy as she struggles to find her voice, unsure where to begin. “ _Speak_ ,” he commands, seemingly calm, but even in the weak flush of her lantern she can see the beginnings of his temper coloring one cheek as red as the other.

“I—I—” she stutters, stomach churning like the Narrow Sea. She can’t bear to meet his gaze, so sullen and wroth. She feels half a child, and is shamed once again. “Forgive me.”

He stares with such bewilderment at that: his eyes are thin as reeds, his brow wrinkles, and his mouth puckers in suspicion. “Say what you mean, girl.” He speaks slowly, as if she is some halfwit. In that moment, she thinks she might be.

“I never meant for this to happen,” she says, hands trembling as the deep shadows on his face flicker wildly.

“This?”

“I still don’t quite understand it myself, and I—“ she stumbles, and takes a few steps closer. “I never meant to have you imprisoned, it’s just that…Arya told me you were _dead_ , and then I saw you there, in the throne room. I…I suppose I was so astonished that my mouth was speaking before my mind could catch up.”

“Spare me your pretty song,” he growls, standing so quickly that she staggers back in alarm, “and speak truly. Is this some jape? Some clever vengeance?”

“What do you mean?”

“A clean death too good for the Hound, that it?” 

“A clean death?” Sansa repeats, confused. “I—“

“Then what?” he snarls. “Couldn’t stand the thought of that Queen sending me to the block before you had your chance to peck at me?”

When understanding finally settles about her, Sansa gasps . “You think—after—you think I wanted to _hurt_ you?” He is silent, smug, and she pants with disbelief. “I only wished to help you.”

For the second time since she has entered his cell, he laughs, but still there is no joy in it. “Strangest help I’ve ever had, believe that.”

“It was thoughtless, I know, and foolish,” she starts, but he cuts her off with an amused huff.

“Oh, aye, a bold little bird you were.” 

“But I never intended—”

“Enough!” he snarls, leaping forward to loom above her. Though he can only get so close, chained as he is, his hands are curled into fists, twitching madly with barely constrained rage. “If you’ve only come to chirp, I’ve had enough.”

Her lip trembles traitorously, and she swallows her tears around the hot coal in her throat. It is all going so terribly wrong. “It was a mistake to come here. I will leave you be, if that’s what you desire,” she sighs. “I am truly sorry, Sandor.”

Sansa backs away from him reluctantly, but she has the cold flint of his glare and the sorrow in his voice when he says, “Go on, then.” And rather than turning to leave, she is placing the lantern onto the cold stone and inching closer to him. He stares, silent, until she is close enough that she could touch him, if she had the courage.

“The Dragon Queen may look a pretty thing," she whispers, "but she won the Iron Throne as thrones have always been won, and her spine is sharp as the blades she sits upon. She would have executed you, believe _that_.”

“Mayhaps you should have let her,” he mutters.

“Do you wish to die? _Truly_?”

He stalks as far away from her as his chain will allow. “Better than this rotting!” he spits, though there is no venom to it. “This—this wasting away in the darkness, forgotten like some moldy apple at the bottom of a sack!” When he faces her again, he is as angry as she has ever seen, but he radiates such yawning misery that Sansa nearly sobs.

“Some lives aren’t worth saving,” he mumbles, so earnest that her heart aches for him. “Least of all _mine_ , and least of all by _you_.”

“Mayhaps you are too quick to sentence yourself,” she counters, aghast at his self-loathing.

“A clean death,” he says quietly, eyes glued to the stone beneath his bare feet. “All a man like me can ask for.”

“A clean death?” She cannot hide her horror.

“I’ve been ready to die for a long time, little bird,” he says, and her blood turns to ice. She must _make_ him understand, she realizes. She tries to look stern, then, and thinks of the way Septa Mordane’s face would twist and pinch whenever Arya gave her trouble, but then, uninvited, she remembers too much— _her Septa’s head impaled upon the walls_ — _her father’s head_ — _her_ father—

“Daenerys Targaryen is not some rotten bastard making a spectacle at the Steps of Baelor!” Sansa hisses. “She is not some high lord who will hear your last words and look upon your face! She is a warrior and a queen, and she savors the blood of her enemies.”

For once, it is Sandor who has nothing to say.

“She’s got no headsman, you know.” Her voice is low, now, and sad. “No greatsword, no block, just her words. _Fire and blood_ , Sandor. She makes a great show of it, and the smallfolk love to get a glimpse. I’ve not the stomach for any of it, not since…well, not any longer. But two of her children live still, and I hear that they prefer to cook their meals.” He blanches, half of his sharp face white as Weirwood bark, and looks for one moment so terribly afraid. “You’d just be a morsel.” She looks him up and down, solemn. “Even a man like you would be a morsel, but they’d cook you just the same. I couldn’t just stand there and do _nothing_. I couldn’t let her…”

Sansa finds her voice fading off, and she cannot bring herself to voice it. There is a space between breaths in which they are both silent, but then his face contorts into a grimace, and he is angry again. “You think you know me, girl?”

Sansa cannot help the smile that curves the crook of her mouth. “I know you, Sandor Clegane, better than most. I know why you fled that night, when the Blackwater burned.”

“Oh, bugger your pity, _Lady Lannister,_ ” he spits, and Sansa recoils at the acid she hears. Her stomach drops until she feels as empty-headed as he always said.

“I have stayed far longer than is proper, I think,” she says, bending to retrieve her lantern. Her steel is a mummer’s farce, she can hear how her voice falters, so she tries desperately to hide her face as she backs away from him—he will take one look at her and know. She cannot bring herself to meet his gaze until she is at the door, and she is shrouded in the stifling dark of the cell.

“Little bird." His voice is thick and gloomy as it grazes past, but she hardens her heart to it.

“I am truly sorry for all of the suffering I have caused you, but know that I do not regret it,” she says, and if her chin trembles just then, he is too far to see it. “Better alive and rotting than cooked in a dragon’s belly.”

“Sansa,” he pleads, so quiet she almost thinks it imagined, but then there is the clinking of his chain as he rises. “Will you return?”

She succumbs to the selfish desire to hurt him as much as she now hurts when she says, “Mayhaps not,” and she is proud of the chill in her voice. But when the door to his cell is shut and locked behind her, she gives vent to her distress. She can scarcely see for the way her eyes burn and blur behind so many angry tears, so she stumbles through the hall until she nearly smashes her nose against the false wall. And as she walks back to the Tower of the Hand, her mind wars with itself. A part of her wants to turn back and beg his forgiveness for true, but she could not bear another ounce of his scorn. Another part of her wants to never return, as she promised, but even worse than that would be for him to hate her in his final breath. When she reaches the crude ladder, Sansa feels no more certain of herself, but while she counts four hundred and twenty-three steps, she buries all of it.

Tyrion awaits her in his solar. He is dozing, an empty flagon of wine near his hand, and starts at the noise of the hearth rearranging itself. He blinks slowly. “Speak to your fill, then?”

“Yes,” she lies, too easily. “I thank you for your help, my Lord.”

“S’nothing,” he slurs, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Good night, Tyrion,” she says, and leaves before he can stop her. 

She does not bother to undress once she is in her own chamber. Sansa crawls beneath the furs and slips into a black, dreamless sleep. She awakens just before dawn, the echoes of his taunt still ringing in her ears: _Lady Lannister_ , _Lady Lannister, Lady Lannister._ It is only in the warm light of the morning that she realizes she still has the key. 


	3. In Your Heart There's a Spark That Just Screams

Sansa has not felt so lonesome in many years. She was not entirely friendless, before. She had a distant but nonetheless courteous rapport with some of the noble ladies who visited the city, but on her last visit to the Great Sept, she had hardly knelt at the Father before she heard the whispering all about her. And with Tyrion, she had clung to a desperate, fragile sort of affection, but ever more she can feel the fabric there fraying. She seems him rarely of late, and when they do share a meal or happen across each other, he is distant. He speaks as superficially as one might address a stranger, and too often he gapes as though she is something foreign, stares with such doubt and confusion that Sansa flees his presence to wallow, smothered with guilt. And though she has not been forbidden from the Queen’s court, neither has she been summoned, so she avoids the throne room entirely, holding stubborn to her self-imposed isolation. It is, therefore, a great relief when Tyrion requests her company to break their fast together.

The morning dawns dreary. A fierce gale blows from the East, chilled in its journey across the Narrow Sea. It drives sheets of heavy rain against the Tower of the Hand, and as the stones are thrashed, an eerie whistle seeps through the cracks. The gloom is oppressive in her bedchamber, and so Sansa dons a heavy wool dress, black as a moonless night. She has not touched it in the year since she came back to this place, and though the rough fabric scratches in the places where it touches her skin, it keeps the cold at bay as she makes her way to the lowest level of the tower.

This new hall, still called Small Hall, is much different than its forbear. Two-dozen hearths line the walls, and near thirty long, narrow tables fill the space between; it is large enough that the Queen herself could hold her court within. When the white ravens finally flew, Tyrion feasted all of King’s Landing’s nobility here in celebration of winter’s end. And yet, despite the formality of this place, the high table sits small and cozy just before the largest hearth in all of the Red Keep.

When Sansa enters, this cavernous hearth is piled high and blazing. Her husband stands at the head of the table, and he greets her with an open smile. She can smell the food as she approaches, and marvels at the spread laid out—a mountain of crispy bacon with two dozen eggs fried in the fat, steaming loafs of brown bread and a full platter of flaky pastries, blackberry currant jam and clotted cream and soft butter, apples baked with honey and goat cheese, many pitchers of plum wine, and a sweet dark ale. It is half a feast, and Sansa is sure that they will not be dining alone. 

“Lady Sansa!” Tyrion proclaims, his voice warmer than it has been in many weeks.

“Good morning, my Lord,” Sansa answers brightly, eager to return the fondness that has been so lacking between them this last turn. “I trust you are well?”

“Quite,” Tyrion says, his lips quivering with some scrap of mischief. “I know you much prefer to dine alone, these days, but as I have invited guests to join me this morning, I found it only proper for you to be here as well.”

“Of course, my Lord,” she replies graciously. “I thank you. And who are you expecting?”

“Welcome faces,” he says, and as if on his cue, the massive doors at the front of the hall creak, opening wide. Sansa cannot suppress a cry of joy when their party enters.

Lady Brienne of Tarth leads—tall and broad as ever, but her blonde hair nearly touches her shoulders now, and her armor has never gleamed so brightly. Ser Podrick Payne follows close, loyal as a pup shadowing its mother. Arya strides behind them both with a deadly sort of poise, her lupine face awash in scrutiny, and Sansa catches the wink of her strange thin sword in the firelight as she moves.

“Oh!” Sansa squeals, abandoning any semblance of propriety as she bolts from the table. Once she is close enough, she throws her arms around Arya’s lithe frame and draws her close to her breast.

“Miss me?” Arya asks with a teasing chuckle.

“Terribly,” Sansa admits. “I am so very glad to see you!”

Arya tenses, then regards her closely for many breaths, her shoulders rigid and her mouth sharp—the sort of face a hungry cat might make while it considers a particularly nimble mouse. “Yes, well…you too,” she grumbles at last.

There is a low cough from behind them, and Sansa turns. Lady Brienne stands stiff and motionless, save for the uneasy shuffling of one foot, and Ser Podrick wears an uncomfortable smile.

“Oh, forgive me, please, my dear friends!” Sansa exclaims. “I have been most selfish. I am glad to see you as well, Brienne, and you, Ser Podrick. I cannot thank you enough for escorting my sister here.”

Podrick grins wide, just as Brienne tilts her head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. “We are more traveling companions than escort, my Lady,” she says with a quiet smile. “Your sister is quite capable.”

“Yes, I suppose she is,” Sansa muses. “I am so grateful you could come on such short notice.” 

Brienne and Arya exchange a pregnant glance, and Sansa suppresses a flare of panic as she thinks of her strange request, and of her husband, too close, and of the letter still in the Queen’s possession. _Not now_ , she thinks, willing them both to hear her, and before they can speak, she turns gracefully and begins the walk back to the high table. “You must be exhausted, but first I insist that you join us while we break our fast.”

The three of them follow her silently until they reach the high table, where Tyrion receives them with one of his awkward bows. “Welcome to King’s Landing! I trust your journey was uneventful?”

“Mostly,” Brienne says cryptically. “I thank you for the hospitality, Lord Tyrion.” 

“We are all of us friends and family,” he says easily, as if such a queer response follows. 

Brienne frowns, but then Tyrion takes his place at the head of the table, so the rest of them mimic his action. Sansa sits at her husband’s right hand, and Arya plops down next to her with a thud. Brienne takes the seat across from Sansa, and Podrick sits quietly beside her. Without any further pretense, Tyrion reaches for an ewer of plum wine. There is a tension between them all, now that the pleasantries are past, and it puts Sansa on edge. They are all straight spines as unspoken questions linger. Each of them fills their plates and their goblets, and then a heavy silence permeates the room, punctuated only by mouths chewing and flatware scraping.

While she spreads jam across a flaking pastry, Sansa observes her companions carefully. Tyrion seems the genuine host if not for the way his eyes constantly flicker warily between Sansa and her sister. Arya, however, does not bother to hide her restlessness, and her left hand touches the hilt of her sword so often Sansa thinks it must be comforting for her to know it is still there. Brienne gnaws purposely on a greasy strip of bacon, and though she does not so obviously cradle her weapon, Sansa can see that from the strange angle she sits, the warrior woman could bare open steel in a heart’s beat. Of all of them, only Podrick Payne seems unaware of the discomfort surrounding him, or mayhaps just willfully ignorant. He eats with the enthusiasm of someone who has not had a warm meal in many days, and he favors the ale keenly. Sansa herself drinks the plum wine as though she is caught in a swift current and her goblet is the only thing keeping her afloat. 

“Lady Sansa,” Brienne says suddenly, flashing a wide, strained smile. “Are you well?”

“Oh yes, very well,” Sansa replies with a grateful smile. “And you, my dear Brienne?” 

“Road weary,” she answers, “but well.”

Sansa chews her pastry slowly, grasping desperately for some topic to broach and end this awful tension, but each seems too perilously close to opening an interrogation from her obviously curious sister. Just as she is near panic, Tyrion speaks. “It pleases me to see you alive and well after so many years, Pod.” 

“It’s _Ser_ ,” Arya corrects, her tone stern.

“Oh, forgive me,” Tyrion chirps, “ _Ser_ Pod. No, that doesn’t sound quite right, does it? Ser Podrick it is, then.”

The knight in question smiles bashfully. “You can still call me Pod, my Lord. I don’t mind.” 

“Well, that is a relief,” her husband answers. He chews mouthful of bread, then leans forward conspiratorially. “I have heard many rumors, but you must tell me how it is you came to be knighted.”

“Oh, well…it—it was nothing,” Podrick stutters.

“An act of great valor and bravery,” Arya insists, and Ser Podrick flushes. Sansa wonders at the ferocious pride in her sister’s voice.

“He killed one,” Brienne says quietly. “A…one of _them_.”

“Truly?” Tyrion gawks.

“Yes, my Lord,” Podrick replies, looking as though he’d like nothing more than to disappear completely.

“I suppose I should not be so shocked,” Tyrion says thoughtfully. “You were just a boy when you saved my life and slew Ser Mandon Moore.” 

“All I did was push him,” Podrick mumbles, his face glowing ever redder.

“Oh yes, a push, that’s all—from a small boy to a grown man in full plate armor, but just a push nonetheless,” Tyrion japes, then lifts his goblet in acknowledgement. “I am certain the honor is well-deserved.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Podrick says uncomfortably, and once again there is silence.

The panic is returning. Arya cuts into an apple violently, then devours it as though it is the source of some great offense. Tyrion’s eyes bore into Sansa as he slides an egg onto a slice of buttered bread. Brienne sips her ale and Podrick cannot seem to meet anyone’s gaze. Sansa is drinking too quickly, and her mind is buzzing and flustered and she miscalculates.

“How is Rickon?” she blurts abruptly.

Arya peers at her before speaking. “He’s taller than me now, but not quite so tall as you, not yet anyway. He asks about you all the time, you know. He was quite sore with me when I told him he could not come to King’s Landing with us.”

“There must always be a Stark in Winterfell,” Sansa agrees sadly. “I should very much have liked to see him.”

“Then you should come visit,” Arya says pointedly. “Once the Neck is full thawed, the journey will be easy.”

There is a flare of anger at her sister’s thoughtlessness, but it is quickly drowned by a hopeless longing. “Mayhaps,” Sansa answers, crestfallen. “Some day.”

“If you’re allowed, you mean?” Arya keeps her face angled toward Sansa, but there is a challenge in her voice, something caustic and bitter.

“Lady Arya,” Brienne warns her, stern and correcting as Septa Mordane was, in another lifetime.

“What?” Arya balks, petulant. “It’s not the same without you there, Sansa.” 

“Arya, please,” Sansa whispers pleadingly, but her sister does not listen.

“He may be a lord but he’s still a boy,” Arya remarks, obstinate, or just insensitive, or mayhaps both. “Rickon doesn’t _listen_ to me, not like he listened to you. I think it’s because you look so much like Mother.”

“Arya, that’s not—”

“You look skinny—is he feeding you?” She veers off course suddenly, and shoots a withering glare in Tyrion’s direction.

He heaves an amused sigh in response. “Have I done something to earn your mistrust, Lady Arya?”

“Of course not, _my Lord_ ,” Arya retorts, and from her lips the title has never sounded so much like a slur. “To say you have earned my mistrust would imply that there was first trust between us.”

“That is _enough_ , Arya,” Sansa hisses. “Tyrion is my _husband_ , and he is Hand to the Queen, and above all you are his _guest_ in this castle. I will not abide such open antagonism.”

“Oh, it’s quite alright, my Lady,” Tyrion says with a chuckle, and he places a hand atop Sansa’s in an attempt to placate. He turns his gaze to Arya and says, “I’ve not heard such honesty in quite some time. You’re a sharp one, I’ll give you that.”

“Is it sharp you want, then?” Arya spits, and then she is standing. Her thin sword is extended ominously, the tip gleaming in the firelight, almost hungry as it observes Tyrion’s throat.

The tension between them all snaps in an instant. Reflexively, Brienne’s hand darts to the hilt of her sword, and though she remains seated, her fingers twitch in anticipation and her blue eyes flash between the pair anxiously. Podrick watches in abject horror at the scene unfolding before them. Sansa feels dread snarling, and her heart beats against her chest, racing and wild like the galloping of hooves. Tyrion meets Arya’s gaze with determination.

“Is that what _you_ want, Lady Arya?” he asks unflinchingly. “To kill me?”

A long silence stretches between them all. And then, mercifully, Arya laughs.

“If I wanted to kill you,” she says with a feral grin, “you’d already be dead.”

Arya resumes her seat casually, and she sips the dark ale with greed as friction grates at them all. There are a few stilted attempts at lighthearted talk, mostly between Tyrion and Brienne, but it is too uncomfortable at this table to do anything other than fizzle out quickly. The none of them eat, now that so much bitterness is laid bare, so when a manservant enters the Small Hall and begins to clear the uneaten food away, Sansa cannot help but jump at the opportunity to end this awful meal.

She catches his arm as he walks past, and says softly, “My companions are weary from their long journey, and will need to be shown to their lodgings.” He responds only with a silent bow, and moments later, one of Tyrion’s guards appears, waiting expectantly by the halls’s great doors.

“Right,” Lady Brienne says, “I suppose that is our escort. I thank you again for the meal, Lord Tyrion.”

Ser Podrick rises just after Lady Brienne, and while the two of them make the motions of uncomfortable but courteous goodbyes, Sansa turns to Arya. 

“I _am_ glad to see you, truly,” she says with a hesitant smile.

Her sister rises halfheartedly to return Sansa’s embrace, and when Arya’s face is buried in her neck, she whispers, “Godswood, sunset,” so softly Sansa thinks maybe she imagined it. 

Arya walks purposefully from the high table without so much as a backwards glance or a word to Tyrion, leaving Brienne and Ser Podrick to follow apologetically. Sansa watches them stride through the Small Hall, and as soon as they are far enough, she turns to her husband. 

“And I suppose that was the Queen’s insistence as well, then?” she asks, finally allowing her temper a bit of room to breathe. 

Tyrion meets her eye calmly. “What do you mean, my Lady?”

“It was clever,” she ponders with a tongue sharpened by so much plum wine, “to use you as a chaperone, that is.”

“Yes, well, be glad that I have the Queen’s ear,” Tyrion says dryly. “She would have preferred you not see your sister at all before the trial.” 

Sansa knows she should thank him for that small courtesy, but finds her patience for all of this posturing withered, and so she says nothing. 

“It’s to be on the morrow,” he adds at her silence. “The trial, that is. You’ll be summoned before midday.”

_The trial._

Some restless animal awakens at that, something slick as a worm curling in the mud, but with sharp edges that gut her. Sansa presses her hands flat against her belly, hoping to calm it. Instead, her stomach turns. “I shall see you then, husband,” she answers, hoping her voice is not so panicked as she feels. “I thank you for the lovely meal.”

It is all she can do not to flee from him. She keeps her shoulders straight and high as she leaves his presence, walking as calmly as her frayed nerves will allow, but as soon as she finds the staircase, Sansa runs up, up, up, until she reaches her bedchamber. The fire in her hearth is weak and dying, so she adds several logs until it is blazes with a stifling heat.

She reclines against her mattress, perhaps hoping to find some solace or rest, but instead she is overwhelmed by a great unease. Her fingers worry at the furs beneath her, and her eyes flit about the room like a fly, hardly landing in one spot for more than a heart’s beat. Before long, she can see nothing at all, save for the tourney within her. A great many banners unfurl behind her eyes, one by one: there is the white of dishonesty, and there yellow for hunger, blue for melancholy, and grey for homesickness, and even pink for all of the soft things she cannot quite name. But soon the champion emerges, not so much a true color as it is a deep well that yawns and swallows until it is all encompassing: guilt. She sees it in Arya’s disapproval and in Tyrion’s sadness alike, feels it in her memory—the black of her chamber during the battle, the black of his cell beneath the keep—and in the hollow of her chest, in the squeeze of her eyelids as she drifts away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Though the residents of King’s Landing have little reason to visit the godswood, partial as they are to the Faith of the Seven, Sansa usually meets a few living souls on her frequent visits to this place. But on this evening, it is deserted, and she is glad of it.

She stumbles through the mud, paying more attention to the squelching of her boots than to where they take her. The rain has sputtered to little more than a drizzle, but the wind is persistent, howling like a great pack of wolves as it tears through the trees. A bitter chill settles in her bones, and she is reminded of the shortest days at Winterfell. The days where the snow fell with unnatural persistence, and one could drown in furs and still not escape the cold. The days where they all shared beds, not for the company but rather for the mingling of heat. The days where they spent lifetimes waiting for the quiet to break all at once into chaos, and nearly went mad with the lassitude. The days where fear had been as inevitable as frostbite.

Her heart fills with a bottomless, lonely ache when she finds herself standing beneath the heart tree. It is no Weirwood but rather an ancient oak, as captive in a dense tangle of vines as she is in this city. Its many limbs twist and twirl like gnarled dancers in their lilt to grow around their snares, and though its shoulders seem to sag under the weight of age and hardship, though the bark of its face is lined and weathered, it nevertheless stands proud and tall, persisting. 

“I meant what I said, this morning,” a voice interrupts her reverie. “About Rickon.”

Sansa gasps, startled, and turns slowly to find Arya standing beside her, face barely visible under her dark cloak. “Seven hells,” Sansa mutters, “I did not hear you.” 

“My apologies,” Arya answers, but the smirk she wears as she lifts her hood belies her. “I wasn’t just trying to upset you. He’s wild, Sansa. He’s meant to be a lord, but I can barely get him to sit still.” 

“He’s a boy, and he was robbed of his childhood,” Sansa says, “and his mother, and his father. He has much to learn, and he will learn in time. You were wild, too, when you were of his age.”

“That’s different,” Arya huffs. “I wanted to fight, not blind stitch a hem.”

“You were being trained to run a household,” Sansa retorts, amused, “and despite your rebellion, you managed to learn both.”

“Yes, well, I suppose we all surprise ourselves sometimes,” Arya says, her tone suddenly dour.

Sansa stares at the heart tree, and wonders if the Old Gods can see her here. Its eyes are little more than thin slits in the bark, but its mouth is wide and grinning. “I could write to him,” she suggests with a shrug, “if you think it might help.” 

“It might.” Arya chews the thought for a moment, then adds, “Might not, though, and I did not come here to talk about our brother.”

“Very well, then,” Sansa sighs. She turns to her sister with apprehension. 

“There are some things I never told you,” Arya starts, “about my time with the Hound, that is.”

Sansa pauses just long enough to smooth her ruffled cloak. “What do you mean?”

“I always thought he was just lying, that he was trying to make me angry. Of late, I am not so sure.” Arya’s voice is thick with the struggle of ordering her thoughts. “There are things you must needs tell me, and tell me truly, Sansa. I’ll know if you lie.”

“I’ll tell you,” she says.

Arya turns away, then, and Sansa can see only the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders with each breath, the way her hair thrashes in the icy wind. “He told me once that you sang for him,” she mumbles, more accusation than question.

The sky above them is barely visible through the curling mat of old branches, but in the rainy glow of dusk, it is nearly green. _Sing, little bird,_ Sansa remembers. “Yes, I did.”

“What did you sing?” Arya asks. 

“Doesn’t matter, now,” Sansa says sadly.

“I tried to kill him after he stole me,” Arya says. This habit she has, this jumping from one thought to the next with no warning, it is unnerving, and Sansa can barely keep up. “He laughed at me, and he tied my hands together, and then threatened to beat me, but at the end, he _begged_ me for the gift of mercy.”

“Mercy?” Sansa asks, not comprehending. Arya turns again, and her eyes are distant, as if searching for footing in the old memory.

“’That’s where the heart is,’” she says, lowering her chin to make her voice deep and pointing at Sansa’s chest with one long finger. “’That’s how you kill a man.’ He told me that, too. He wanted me to end it quickly, and when I didn’t, he tried to provoke me.” She pauses, draws a deep breath, and steps close. “He told me he took your song, that it was not freely given. What did he mean?”

Sansa remembers the flaring of her panic when she first noticed him in her chamber, so drunk and frightened and _angry_ , always so angry. She remembers the cold bite of his dagger at her neck, and the warm salt of his tears against her palm. She remembers so many things that she dare not even think for fear of their form, and so she pretends that her voice is lost and looks anywhere except her sister’s mutinous glare.

“He said he meant to take you, too,” Arya spits, “and yet, the way I hear it, you disgraced yourself to save his life.” 

Sansa flushes at that, her shame and her temper mingling unpleasantly. “I didn’t—“

“You did too,” Arya retorts, her voice blooming with the same petulance Sansa remembers hearing a decade past, when she and Jeyne Poole would laugh at the muddy hem of her dress and call her ‘horse face.’ “I can’t understand why, Sansa. You’ve never done anything so…so stupid!”

“Stupid?” Sansa gasps, so shocked and so unsettled that her lips bolt ahead of her mind. “He refused to speak for himself! He just laughed at her—at the Queen! I thought him dead for so long, and then to see him alive and with so little regard for…I couldn’t just do _nothing_!”

Arya stumbles backwards as though pushed, and her face narrows in suspicion. “When I told you he was dead, you cried! I thought you were surprised, maybe relieved, but I never…” She stops abruptly, and studies Sansa carefully for many moments—the pink glow that starts at her high cheekbones and creeps down her neck, the way her chest heaves with indignation—and then she glares, grey eyes glinting with cold scorn. “What does he mean to you?”

“Wh—what?” Sansa stammers, flustered, her blush growing hotter.

“The Hound! You sound like—” Arya chokes on a bitter laugh. “ _Gods_ , Sansa, what does he mean to you?”

“Nothing,” she answers, too quickly, and when her sister begins to speak, Sansa insists, “He means nothing to me, I swear it!”

“Liar!” Arya hisses, jabbing a slender finger forward like a sword. “You’re lying!”

“I’m not—”

“I told you I’d know, and you’re _lying_.” Her voice drops low and quiet, and the way her face narrows in the fading light, Arya looks half a predator. “Do you know he spoke of you often?”

Sansa gathers what little composure she has left to whisper, “He did?”

“He was always calling you pretty,” Arya smirks, “even half-dead from his festering leg and mad with fever. He said he should have raped you, should have…should have _fucked you bloody_ , and—”

Sansa recoils at that, clenching her hands so tightly that she can feel the nip of her fingernails in the flesh of her palms. “That’s not true!” she shouts defiantly. “He wouldn’t—”

Her sister laughs contemptuously, and oh, how it cuts right through her. She had promised herself never to speak of it, not to anyone. It was easy enough to convince her husband, drunk as he was, but Arya is too clever, and knows her too well by half. _It’s no use_ , she thinks, defeated. “He tried to save me, Arya,” Sansa whispers, “and I…but he never hurt me.”

“Save you?” Arya demands, incredulous. She is not laughing anymore, but barely suppressed ridicule pulls her lips taut.

“It was when Stannis invaded, and he…” Sansa sighs impatiently. “You know, the songs about battle are always so romantic. They’re full of bravery and valor and honorable death, but it’s not like that, not truly.”

“I know.” Arya is smirking again, so Sansa returns a bitter smile.

“They don’t sing about the burning, or the screams of dying men. They don’t warn you about the stink of it all, the smoke and the blood. And the fear…Arya, you can smell the fear, and I…I was so frightened.”

Arya is silent, so Sansa continues sadly. “Cersei had summoned all of the noble ladies in King’s Landing to wait out the battle in the Queen’s Ballroom. I thought we would be safe—with all of the gates raised, and the moat about the Red Keep, and Ser Ilyn there to protect us, I thought…but Cersei didn’t mean for Stannis Baratheon to have her alive, nor any of us. She told me herself, so when there was a commotion, I snuck away. And he…”

Her voice trembles just to think of it, but her sister just nods, says, “Go on.”

“He was waiting for me,” Sansa says, “in my chamber. He deserted during the battle, but instead of fleeing the city, he waited for me.”  
  
“What did he do?” Arya demands.

Sansa meets her sister’s eye and all of her courage dissolves. “Arya,” she hesitates with a sigh, “I don’t…I’ve never spoken of this before, you understand.” Her sister just stares impatiently, so Sansa continues.

“He told me he was leaving,” she says sadly, “going North. He said he would keep me safe. But Ser Lancel said that the gold cloaks were deserting by the hundreds, and that Stannis was going to take King’s Landing, so I thought…”

“You refused?” Arya asks.

“Yes,” Sansa whispers. “He was angry, I think, and he made me sing for him, but he didn’t…he _never_ …”

“He didn’t hurt you?” Arya sneers.

“No!” Sansa cries. “He never would have—“

“ _Never_?” Arya spits. “You’re mad if you believe that. He’s a monster!”

Sansa bristles at that, and she cannot help but remember the way he whispered, _little bird_. She embraces her growing anger with arms outstretched. “You weren’t _there_!” Sansa snaps, off-balance. “He could have cut me open, but instead he wept, and he could have…could have…” she’s stuttering, and she can’t bear to say it, so she settles for, “ _hurt_ me, but instead he just kissed me and he fled!” And _that_ silences her sister. Sansa’s cheeks burn, the rage quickly morphing into something unfamiliar.

“He kissed you?” Arya asks quietly.

“Yes, but that’s all, I swear it.”

“That’s all?” Arya studies her for many long moments. “Sansa, why did you summon me here?”

“I had no choice,” she answers. “The Queen decided there was to be a trial, and ordered me to summon you.”

“But why must there even _be_ a trial?” Arya presses.

Her sister’s tone is condescending, and Sansa feels rather like a stubborn mare being led by a bit. “You know as well as I that he is falsely accused,” she replies defensively. “ _You’re_ the one who told me so!”

“With one breath, you say he means nothing, but with the next you say he kissed you,” Arya says. “Stop lying to me, Sansa.”

She feels hot needles pricking and prodding her until the heart tree blurs behind a curtain of unshed tears. “He…I only…I don’t _know_!” Sansa cries desperately, and even to her own ears the words sound false.

“Truly?” Arya scoffs, and the glare she offers as a counter is stifling.

She falters beneath the weight, even as Arya seems to peel back skin and muscle layer by layer, until she is bare to the core. Sansa looks away for the fear of what she might see there. “I hardly recognize myself, these last weeks,” she whispers.

“Gods, you’re just lying to yourself, aren’t you?” Arya accuses her. “You’re ashamed, or mayhaps you’re afraid, but I think I understand now.”

The sudden silence between them is chilly, and the fat raindrops that splatter them punctuate the dread that expands in the hollow of Sansa’s chest. “What do you mean?” she asks hesitantly. Arya flashes a bemused expression, the same sort of look Tyrion has been giving her of late, and suddenly Sansa feels as though there is some great jape at her expense, that they are all laughing at her. “What do you mean?” Sansa cries.

“If it were anyone but you…” Arya starts, but sighs. “He’s a _monster._ ”

It is the second time her sister has made this accusation, and she cannot help but remember his gentle touch, that day on the battlements. “You’ve more in common with my husband than you’d ever believe,” Sansa retorts, glib, “but you’re both wrong.”

“Your husband?” Arya ponders. “And what _does_ he think of all this?”

Sansa hesitates at that. “Tyrion?”

“Yes,” she repeats, “Tyrion. How does he feel about the spectacle you’ve made of this?”

“Oh, he hardly speaks to me,” Sansa admits, “and when he does, I’m certain he believes me quite mad. I find I care very little what he thinks of me, these days.”

“Nor anyone else, it seems,” Arya murmurs pointedly.

“I think we might have become friends, but our marriage has always been a mummer’s farce,” Sansa says regretfully. “Even before, he hardly came to me, and then only with a bellyful of strongwine.”

 “If you’re so unhappy here,” Arya says, “why don’t you just come home?”

_Home_ , Sansa thinks, and her heart aches for it. Where Winterfell was warm granite walls, The Tower of the Hand is nothing but cold red stone; where Winterfell teemed with life and bustle, The Tower of the Hand resonates with ringing silence; and where Winterfell was soft and familiar, the comfort of family, The Tower of the Hand is solemn and barren, strange faces. “It’s not that simple,” she says, frowning.

Arya sighs, then says, “We should return.”

“As you wish,” Sansa replies. She takes Arya’s arm, ensnaring it within her own, and together they walk silently through the soggy wood. The entrance is unguarded, as it is most often, and the lower courtyard is empty as an abandoned lichyard. The only sounds to be heard as they pass are the soft falling of their feet against the stone and the clamor of the wind soaring above them. When they near the drawbridge that separates the upper courtyard, Arya stops.

“I’ll speak tomorrow, I’ll say what happened, but I won’t do it for _him_ ,” she says.

Sansa smiles wide and pulls her into a tight embrace. “Thank you.”

“Just think on what I’ve said,” she replies, voice as rigid as her spine, and then slithers out of Sansa’s arms. Without another word, Arya turns swiftly, and within the space of a few breaths, she is across the bridge and gone from sight.

As she walks back to her bedchamber, Sansa cannot shake the unease that cloaks her. Her mind is empty as a canyon, save for her sister’s accusations which echo and bounce like the cacophony of an angry mob. _He’s a monster,_ and _You say he means nothing_ , and _You’re just lying to yourself_ , and all of the things Arya had not said as well. _She does not understand,_ Sansa thinks angrily, but then, if he truly did mean nothing to her, then she should not spare a moment’s discomfort at the thought of his execution. _He is wrongly accused_ , she answers herself, but if it were just his innocence, she should not have felt so wounded when he rejected her half-formed explanations. No, in fact, she ought not to have sought to explain herself in the least. Tyrion had called it a friendship, _but he is not my friend_. No, he had provoked her at every turn, had mocked her, even. _But,_ she thinks, he had also protected her, he had been honest with her, and he had shared parts of himself with her none else knew. He had tried to save her, had even let her refuse him. 

_Not nothing_ , Sansa thinks. He spoke of her often, even with his dying breath, and she had thought of him often, even dreamt of him once. _No, not nothing at all_ , she admits. She remembers the olive green cloak that sits in a chest in her bedchamber, and the small, rusty key stashed safely in its pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick hello and thank you to everyone who has read and commented so far. I'm glad to have you all along for the ride!


	4. Don't Hate Her When She Gets Up to Leave

Though she has been gone some long hours and the sun hides low in the sky, Sansa’s chambermaid has kept the hearth roaring. A great fatigue enshrouds her as she sits before the glow and crackle of flame. All of the triumph she felt to see her sister again has been undermined by their conversation in the Godswood, and her mind is still reeling. Her boots tap a disorderly rhythm against the stone floor, her fingers scratch at the rough wool of her dress, unsatisfied, and all the while, her eyes meander about her chamber, deliberately avoiding the tall wardrobe nestled between the window and the garderobe.

 _It is madness._ Sansa thinks of the Queen in the throne room, the ice in her voice, violet eyes narrowed to sharp points; she thinks of the Queen in the council chambers, the careful restraint hiding simmering fury, disbelief, scorn. If she were to discover this new rebellion, her fury would be unmatched. She thinks of her husband, Tyrion, of the chill between them, now, and those looks he is always giving her, like she is some stranger. If he were to discover this new betrayal, he would spurn her entirely.

She thinks of her first imprisonment in King’s Landing, and of the things that happen to hostages without allies.

But she thinks of Sandor, too—of a moon’s turn and more alone in a dark cell, how he’d sneered at her pity with one breath and called her bold with the next, how he’d begged for her return. She thinks of what looms on the morrow. _There may never be another chance_ , she tells herself sternly.

Half a dozen times, Sansa stands and walks to her wardrobe, only to return to her chair before the hearth. _Madness._ Half a dozen times, Sansa touches the polished handle with hesitation, only to withdraw her hand as though burned. _Boldness_. Finally, she opens the doors.

At the bottom of the wardrobe, her cloak is folded neatly, dark and green and rough like the spindly trees that fill the Wolfswood. She opens it, and fumbles until she finds the small pocket sewn into the lining. The rusted key still hides inside, so she grips it firmly with two fingers, and slides it between her stocking and her boot.

And as she descends the hidden spine of the Hand’s Tower, Sansa prepares herself for every reaction that he might have. If he mocks her, she will not cower and retreat, as she did before, but rather speak to her peace and find solace in the ridding herself of this unexpected revelation. And if he turns her away, she will honor his choice, just as he did hers in another life. But if he accepts her words as truth, she is not sure what she will do.

And for all of her resolution, her hands still tremble as she pushes at the false wall, but she has come too far to turn back now. She creeps down the empty corridor until she finds the only locked door.

He is sitting upright on the straw pallet when she enters. Sansa shuts the door behind her slowly, and holds the lantern in front of her. To her surprise, he is silent, though his eyes squint and blink rapidly as he adjusts to the sudden light. After a moment’s consideration, he sighs.

“Thought you weren’t coming back.”

Sansa is unsettled to hear such defeat in him. “I changed my mind,” she croaks.

“Why are you here, then?”

“Because I am not finished with you, Sandor Clegane.”

He winces at that, though she cannot fathom why. “That right?” he asks warily.

Sansa takes a step closer to him, and nearly chokes on her shock as the weak light of the lantern illuminates him. Where he was ragged before, he is now threadbare. His clothes are rotting right off of him, and from one half of his uneven face hangs a thick, greasy beard. She can see small sores scattered about his forearms and chest where he has scratched fleabites until they are raw, and his bound ankle weeps, red and ominous. His skin is sallow for the want of sunlight, the unburnt half of his face gaunt and cowed. Both of his eyes sink into dark sockets. He is changed, now, only a shadow of the man she met ten years past, and she shudders as a tendril of guilt coils, ice cold in her gut.

She has failed hide her reaction, and he scowls at her. “Get on with it.”

She draws a breath and composes herself, then returns his gaze. “My sister has come to King’s Landing.”

“Aye?”

“Your trial is to be on the morrow.”

He offers the faintest snort of a laugh in response. A glimmer of hope swells to hear the dry edge in his voice when he says, “I’ll take a hot bath, then, and wear my finest tunic.” Yet his humor fades quickly, and the neither of them speak for a time. He stares silently at the dirty floor of his cell, uncomfortably waiting for Sansa to lead. But she hardly knows where to begin, how to build the path that leads to this inexplicable secret, so she lets loose the first thought to come to mind.

“Where have you _been_ , all these years?”

He does not meet her eye, but she can see the smirk he flashes to his feet when he says, “I fear you won’t believe me.”

Sansa nearly smiles in return, but she can see the muscle in his cheek jumping, his jaw working to form the words. “Tell me,” she coaxes him.

“I was a novice,” he says finally, “on the Quiet Isle.”

“A novice?” she repeats, stunned. “You?”

His smirk widens. “Aye, little bird. After your sister left me for dead, the Elder Brother there healed me up and took me in.”

A small laugh spills from her lips before she can swallow it. “A novice…all those years and you were right there.” His eyes snap up to hers, and she can see the way he tilts his head and the way his brow creases in confusion, the question bubbling at his lips, but she does not wish to speak of the Vale or her second husband or the dead man she called father, so before he can give his thought form she squeaks, “I cannot imagine you well-suited to such a life.”

She had really only meant to jest, but he is silent, and as his smirk fades, his eyes are open and clear, the calm grey of summer rain. “A man can grow numb to near anything if he spends enough time at it,” he answers grudgingly.

“Why did you leave, then?” she asks.

“Winter emptied the stores, and hunger makes men weak,” he says with a familiar candor. “Weak men are easy prey for the desperate, and the rest had been too long in quiet. Even those who remembered how could hardly lift a blade.”

“So you left?”

He nods. “Aye. Nothing there for anyone, save the crows.”

“Why return to King’s Landing, then?” she asks, doubtful. “There is nothing for you here, either.”

“Nothing?” His eyes flash dark and angry, the cold grey of blizzard and stone. “Don’t see how it’s any concern of yours.”

“But I wish to know nonetheless,” she insists with a hollow sort of courage, for even as the words pass her lips, her voice wavers, a traitor.

“Mayhaps even dead men wish to keep their secrets,” he snaps. “And what right have you to pry when you’re back in this gilded cage?”

“I had no choice in the matter,” she retorts, her voice perhaps too sharp but after her sister’s inquisition only hours past, she is weary.

“The way I hear it told, you came willingly,” he says, not quite accusing but still she feels her hackles rise.

“I could not refuse the Queen!” she exclaims, but he just laughs— _laughs_! She imagines him as he was in the Great Hall, head thrown back defiantly. Her patience unravels quickly, and before she can calm herself, her temper is flaring. “Mayhaps you were hungry on your little island, but you were _safe_ ,” she hisses, surprised at the snarl of her bitterness.

He quiets, successfully rebuked, so she presses on.

“You couldn’t possibly understand. We…we were desperate! The none of us were prepared for them, not the strongest of us nor the wisest of us, not our greybeards nor even the bones in our crypts. The Others, their army—it made no difference what sort of weapons we used or how many clever traps we laid, for even when we drove them back, we watched our fallen rise to turn against us. It was unnatural! And when the Wall came down, we fled, and…” Sansa exhales around her frustration, and looks to find him watching intently. She sets her lantern down softly and steps closer. Her shadow casts his face in darkness.

“It was the quiet nights I hated most, the many deaths of waiting for White Harbor to become our tomb. Every raven carried news of another keep overrun, more ground lost, more people lost, more hope lost. The snow was so deep a horse could sink to his neck, the ice so thick an army could cross the sea afoot, and the cold—even the slightest whisper of a breeze cut like a blade. We were starving and losing and desperate and…you must understand, she was our only hope!”

“The Dragon Queen?”

She frowns. “And her children. And after the war, once her throne was secured, Daenerys Targaryen demanded fealty, and we owed her more than any other.”

Sandor does not say a word, but he eyes her shrewdly, so she offers a sour laugh to quell his doubt.

“We had only just started to rebuild, when the raven came. Win one war, only to start another? Our bannermen would have deserted us, had we refused,” Sansa answers firmly. “The Maesters still tell of Harren the Black and his folly, but I am no fool. I could not be the end of House Stark, of Winterfell. Not for something so selfish. Not when we had only just found each other again.”  
  
“So you did come willingly?” he asks, incredulous.

“I’ve had my fill of death and fighting,” she replies.

“So it’s not _nothing,_ then, is it?” he mumbles, angry, almost as if to himself, but she can hear him. She clutches his words with wild, starving fingers, and they are warm as coals, plush as summer silks. She tucks them into her cheek to dissolve slow and sweet as candied figs. She takes another step closer, and now he is close enough to touch, if only she could muster the courage.

“Why did you come here?” she asks him, surprised to hear her own voice weak as watered wine.

He does not answer her, only stands slowly, and for one moment Sandor Clegane looks down upon her as he did so many years ago. The pale light reaches his face now, and it is not the ruin of puckered flesh nor the winking of bone that she cannot bear, but rather the shameless challenge in wide grey eyes. “Why did _you_ come _here_?” he asks.

“Because you—you may die on the morrow, and I—I could not bear it if I had not told you the truth first.” She is stuttering like a child, but then, he always did frighten her in his own way.

“And what truth is that, little bird?”

“The truth is that I prayed for you,” Sansa begins, but he cuts her off with a scornful laugh.

“Your prayers were wasted on me, girl.”

“That may be,” she persists, “but the truth is that when Arya told me how…how she left you, I was sorry.”

He peers at her with narrowed eyes and unabashed scrutiny, looking for some trace of a lie. Dissatisfied, he growls, “Oh, bugger your pity!”

 _Lady Lannister_ , she thinks. He had called her that not so long ago, and Sansa feels her cheeks burn hot for all that he leaves unspoken. But she is determined to finish this, so she explains, “I was sorry! Sorry for you, that you were alone, and sorry for myself, too, that I never had the chance to—“

“Enough!” he spits, stalking as far from her as his iron leash will allow. “Enough of your chirping!”

Disappointment weighs heavy on her shoulders, and she sighs, “You ask to hear the truth, but it only angers you.”

“I asked you for _nothing_!” he retorts with a searing petulance. “Not your intervention, not your pity or your moonlight visits, and especially not your truths. This mummer’s farce is _your_ doing, not mine!”

His words are sharp, stinging like the slap of a palm across her face. She is mortified at the burn and blur of tears. “I never meant to—oh, but it doesn’t matter now, does it? I’ll leave, if that’s truly what you wish.”

“No!” he hisses, deflated. “Angry? You think I—I'm—too long I watched that bastard king humiliate you, order his knights to beat you, and all the while, I told myself a thousand lies. That it’d be madness to…that I’d be no good if…so I did nothing. Turns out that was just as useless. And the moment you had a chance, you— I’m not angry with you, I only see myself for true, now.” He steps close to her wearing a pained expression. “Just a coward. I called you a stupid little bird, but you’re a bloody wolf, and more the fool me for ever thinking otherwise.” Sandor shakes his head and sighs, “You shame me, Sansa.”

“Do not think so little of yourself,” she tells him sternly. “It _would_ have been madness, and you did a fair bit more than nothing!” She thinks of Joffrey’s name day, and says, “You lied to the king to protect me.” She thinks of the riots, and says, “You killed a man to save my life.” She thinks of the battle, and says, “You tried to take me home, and—”

“And look all the good that’s come of it,” he finishes for her. “Married to Tyrion Lannister. Again. Hostage of the crown. Again. I _should’ve_ stolen you.”

She is shocked to hear him, his words so similar to Arya's accusations, and she dances with her temper for a moment before settling on her response. “I would have been useless, a…a burden. I can’t cook or hunt or care for a horse, or even build a flame! You’d have come to hate me, and we never would have made it far.”

“Might be, but at the least, the serving girls wouldn’t call you thrice wed in their cups,” he counters.

“Might be,” she mimics with a wry smile, “and mayhaps we might have found my brother, a new master for you to serve, just in time to accompany him to my uncle’s wedding. Mayhaps it would have been _my_ wedding instead, and mayhaps you’d have been slaughtered with the rest of Robb’s army.” Sansa draws a steadying breath. “I learned long ago that it does not do to dwell on all of the things that might have been.”

“Then what does the little bird dwell on?” he asks quietly.

“Many things,” she answers carefully. “My family, my home. And ever more lately, you as well.”

He responds with a disbelieving scoff, but he is watching her closely, waiting for her to continue.

“I was in the Vale of Arryn when I first heard the crimes you stand accused of,” she murmurs clumsily, “and I just knew th—that you weren’t…and when Arya told me of your end, I was sorry. I had hoped I might see you again one day. I had hoped—”

He interrupts her with a queer noise, then asks, “You…even after…” His half-formed question fades awkwardly, hanging thick in the lessening space between them.

“Yes,” she whispers, and even though admitting this particular truth is rather like leaping from a parapet, she only feels a thrilling sort of fear.

His eyes soften, and even as something unfamiliar settles into the fine lines about his one whole eye, he asks, “Why?”

“Because you were the only one to ever show me any…any kindness,” she says self-consciously, “the only one to ever make me think for myself, or give me any sort of choice, or…or agency, and because…because you…”

“What?” he asks, stepping closer still.

“Because you kissed me!” she blurts, rather ungracefully.

His eyes fly open with a naked horror. Sansa feels a hot flush creep up her neck and into her cheeks, and for a time Sandor just gapes at her in obvious disbelief.

“What are you talking about?” he finally asks, voice low and serious.

“You—that night, during the battle, you—”

“I did no such thing,” he says firmly, and she cannot tell if he is mocking her.

“You did!” Sansa insists. “You were drunk and…mayhaps you don’t remember, but—”

“I never kissed you, girl,” he interrupts, then murmurs, “Not enough wine in all the Seven Kingdoms to forget that.”

All of her conviction, the safety of earth beneath her, this memory she has clung to for years is ripped away violently, and suddenly this leap she has taken feels like a fool’s errand. “But you—you did and I _remember_ —”

He cuts her off by taking one long stride to finally close the distance between them. He seizes one of her wrists in a grasp tight and unforgiving as the fetter about his ankle. “It’s not your kiss I was after that night, girl,” he growls, and she can feel the scald as it slides between her ribs, his anger, the brand it leaves in its wake. “One taste and I would’ve devoured you. Believe that.”

His grip loosens, then, just enough for her to free her arm. Sansa can feel the beginnings of movement in her limbs, the singe of embarrassment in her throat, and she nearly turns away from him, but then his words are bouncing about in her mind— _I would’ve devoured you_ —and there is a confession in there, of sorts. The anger slips from his expression, leaving only determination, and a question burning in his eyes. She stills, then startles at the whisper of a shy hand just below her ear, the slide of a calloused thumb across her jaw. “You don’t remember,” he says, softer but still insistent, even as his other hand grasps her at the waist, draws her in, “but you could.”

And then he kisses her for true. For one wild moment, all Sansa can think is that he is wrong. The brush of his lips against hers is feather-light, just the faintest of touches, and she feels the wiggling loose of something familiar, a pleasant memory. Her eyes flutter shut, and she presses her lips more firmly against his.

But then he inhales sharply. The hand at her waist wraps tight around her lower back, and the hand at her jaw slides up and into her hair, and she knows then that this is not the kiss she had imagined. It is strange, his lips against hers, the contrast of his beard on the one side against the cragged scarring on the other. No, this is not the kiss she had imagined. There is nothing chaste in the way one hand pulls her flush against his chest. There is nothing cautious in the way his other hand clenches taut in her hair and pulls her head away from his. There is nothing gentle in the way his teeth nip at her neck, the way his tongue tastes her throat, the way his beard tickles. She has never been kissed like this—devoured—and something ravenous awakens within her.

It is instinct that tells her to press her open mouth against his, and without warning, she tastes him, too. Her hands awaken to find purchase in clasping at his tattered tunic, and in return, the hand at her waist slides up slowly until it reaches her breast. His thumb scrapes over her nipple, sending something white hot streaking up and through her, and she gasps.

A knowing smirk tugs at his mouth as he looks down at her. “Do you still remember?” he asks.

“No,” she answers, breathless.

“You will,” he promises.

His fingers pinch and squeeze at her, and his smirk widens as a quiet moan slips past her lips. His mouth returns to her neck and nips at her skin gently, creeping ever lower. He runs his tongue across the thick fabric covering her other breast, but even with this barrier between them she is panting.

He returns his mouth to hers, and overcome by a sudden desire to do the same to him, Sansa lifts her heels and wraps her arms about his neck, then presses her hips against his until she can feel him, rubs herself against the tip of him. He freezes, dark eyes meeting hers with a momentary lucidity. She can see his hunger, now, just as he said, and knows he will take anything that she gives him. She longs to give him all, so she flashes a timid smile, then moves against him a second time. He throws his head back and exhales a ragged breath.

His hands return to her waist, clutching tightly and lifting until her chest is flush against his and she has no choice but to encircle his hips with her legs. When her back collides with the cold stone, she gasps again, and he swallows it, greedy, then continues what she started as his hips grind against hers. He is panting now too, she can feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest against hers, and she finds it difficult to focus on anything save his growing hardness and the honey-sweet warmth between her thighs.

For some moments, he keeps her suspended there. He bends his neck until his forehead rests against hers, and then they are just a clumsy tangle of limbs, the mingling of breath, uncertainty.

“Will you have me, now?” Sansa whispers, wondering what he is waiting for.

“No,” he says, and a hand dips low, crawling into the space between her stockings and her skirts. His fingers scrape up, up, over her calf and behind her knee, and by the time he reaches her thigh, she is shivering beneath his touch.

“What are you—”

“Shh,” he answers, slipping behind the fabric of her smallclothes. “I want you to sing for me.”

She does not understand, but he is watching her with rapt attention, so she keeps her gaze fixed to his until he finds the place where all of her husbands have claimed her. She holds her breath when his fingers find her woman’s place.

“Oh,” she sighs.

It is something new, this slow drag, and it is agonizing, exhilarating. Parts unknown flicker to life, cry for more, and as if he can hear her thoughts, he slips inside her with measured restraint. He moves in and out of her slowly, and though it is an echo of coupling, this feels entirely foreign. He adds a second finger, and she whines at the gentle pressure. It melts some secret part of her, and she feels a molten liquid diffuse until she can feel it flood her body with warmth. He has her breath coming shallow and rapid, and she cannot remember closing her eyes, but she nearly jumps out of her skin when his teeth nip at her neck. His tongue is there, too, soothing and teasing, and her back arches in a way that must look entirely uncouth. She is pressing herself against him, hardly in control of herself any longer, and she almost fears to know the end of this path, until this new angle helps his thumb slides across some unfamiliar part of her.

Sansa cannot help but moan at this new feeling, gold and vast as sunset, sharp and thick as steel. In an instant, he pulls his face away from her. Sansa opens her eyes to find him staring with that same focus. He moves his thumb a second time

“Oh, _Gods_ ,” she moans, surprised at how her voice scrapes rough against the silence of his cell.

His only answer is to smile, then move his thumb in earnest. The air leaves her lungs in a swift whooshing. When his fingers curl inside her, her body responds in kind. She melts into him, fingers a white-knuckled grip, head a low hang against his collarbone, so close that she can taste the salt of his sweat. He is utterly unyielding, he will overwhelm her if he does not stop, and suddenly, she does fear to know the end.

“Gods,” she says again, “what—”

“Look at me,” he says, just as he did so often years ago, but never with such tenderness, and she can feel the rush of his breath against her hair. Her eyes are heavy with the weight of his touch, but she does as he asks and is surprised at what she sees— the arousal is familiar, how his eyes are dark and gleaming, but it is the clarity there too that she does not expect.

“Sandor?” she whispers.

“Sing for me,” he answers. The fingers inside of her move and twist and stretch her in a way that beckons her to acquiesce, and his thumb is pressing harder, rubbing at this strange part of her until she is dizzy with it. The muscles of her stomach quiver in anticipation, and then, as if to steady her, or reassure her, he returns his forehead to rest against hers, their lips a hair’s breadth apart.

And when she finally reaches the peak, she is a sudden collapse and tremble. He swallows her cries with a searing kiss, whining whimpers and trembling moans that seem to follow each wave that floods her. His free hand slides into her hair, petting her scalp in a soothing way, and while his other hand slows, he does not stop touching her.

She stays there for many moments, gasping against his skin, until finally her breath evens and her pleasure dissipates. His hand finally withdraws, and he takes a half step backwards, giving her just enough space to slide down and stand on her own feet, unsteady as he has made them. His gaze is heavy upon her, and a fuzzy glow still lingers, so she touches her lips to his.

At first, he only gives her the sort of kisses she had once longed for, the soft touches and slow savoring. But his manhood against her belly is a firm reminder that he has not yet had his pleasure, and there is an ache deep within her woman’s place that seems to respond. She has felt surprise many times this night—at her own boldness, at his tenderness, at the pleasure he gave her—but this is perhaps the most surprising thing of all, this desire. So when his mouth again grows eager, she meets him with an enthusiasm she never thought to have.

It happens quickly after that. His arms encircle her chest, then he is sinking until he is again sitting on the straw pallet and she is straddling him in a way that would have appalled her, once. They do not speak, but his hands are on her and around her, removing and rearranging layers of fabric and guiding her until his manhood is at her entrance. This is the part she understands, so she takes him in hand. He shudders and flinches at her touch, but his eyes do not leave her for long. He pants and groans as she draws his tip across her with a deliberate slowness, reveling in the want and feel of him for half a heartbeat. But then she is sliding down until they are flush and he is fully sheathed within her. She hovers there, torn between the hot stretch and the answering ache, suddenly unsure.

“Please,” he begs, eyes never leaving this place where they are joined, even as his hands slide to her waist, “ _please_.”

With his direction, she rolls her hips back and forth, back and forth. She has never been taken this way, slowly and at her own pace. He reaches deep and sensitive parts of her, and a different sort of pleasure is bubbling. It is like slipping into an ill-fitting bodice, frenzied little fingers that spread like roots from their joining and grasp at her ribs, compressing and tying her into knots.

He feels it too, he must, for his breath escapes in ragged pants, and he wears a tight grimace, as though he is frightened or in pain. “I can’t,” he rasps.

“Yes,” she whispers, “it’s okay,” and places her lips against his scarred cheek, all the encouragement he needs to take control.

The hands at her waist relocate quickly to brace himself against the pallet beneath him, and he is thrusting up and into her as best as he can manage with one leg maimed and the other bound. Her eyes squeeze shut, and as she leans forward to clutch at him, this new angle has him reaching even deeper.

He says her name over and over again, _sansasansasansasansa_ , and it feels so _good_ , to desire and to be desired, to feel the slide and push of him, and so she tells him how good it feels, how good it makes her feel, and that only spurs him to move faster, until he makes a strangled sort of noise and thrusts up hard, a clumsy lurching once, twice. And then there is only the rush of his seed deep within her, the ragged and gasping way he inhales, and too soon every knot he has tied within her is snapping, and she descends with him, tells him _yes, yes, please yes, please_. It is sultry and rich, what they have made, like the drag of velvet across her skin. It is sharp and jarring, what they have done, like the needling of sleet from horseback. It feels like conquest, like defeat.

She cannot bear to rise, to break this spell, even as he softens within her, even as her hips regret being spread so wide, even as their pleasure wanes. Instead she melts into him, pressing her cheek to his neck and scrapes a fingernail in the place where the hair from his chest begins. She feels that same afterglow settling about her like an autumn snowfall, snug and heavy. He lifts her face with a gentle touch. She has never seen him so serene as he is in this moment, so devoid of the rage and scorn he wears like armor. She feels a great pride at that, recalls the way he cried her name like a prayer, and then a great sorrow, too, as she remembers where they are, and why. She kisses him again, slow and languid, but too soon he is pushing her away, wearing a look she cannot decipher.

“I never—” he starts, but seems to think the better of it, giving her a frustrated sigh. He shakes his head, then says, “If I die, on the morrow…” he says, and again, he cannot seem to find the words.

“Then I shall pray to the Old Gods and the New that the Queen gives you the clean death you hoped for,” she answers firmly.

“And if I don’t?” Sandor asks.

“Then you will be freed,” she says, “and mayhaps I shall convince Arya to take you North. But no matter, I will remember for true, this time.”

A genuine, eye-wrinkling, scar-twisting, delicacy of a smile blooms, uplifting his features in a way she has never seen. This makes her inexorably sad, and Sansa nearly sobs as a wave of longing crashes about her—to make a home here, where she is welcome and wanted, to see a thousand such smiles, to always have his arms about her, to taste him, have him, whenever she pleases. It is hopelessly cruel, so she presses a soft, lingering kiss against his lips, then says, “I have been too long gone.”

His smile falters, then fades as she stands. Her legs are weak and wobbling, and though a small part of her relishes in the knowing of why, the rest is already lonely and bereft. She turns to fetch her lantern, and finds the pallid light to be rippling like gossamer as tears gather and then slither down her face.

She moves with small, careful steps, and as she reaches the heavy door to his cell, he calls out to her. She pushes it open, but turns in time to see him stand and step as close as he can, and she knows, suddenly, somehow, he has found what it was he meant to say, moments ago, but she cannot bear to hear it. Sansa steps backwards until she is past the threshold, and just before she locks him away again, she whispers, “The truth, Sandor Clegane, is that I have long held you in my heart,” and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hi there! I'm still very much alive, and so is this story, but this is the first time I've ever shared something so...er...salacious, so I have been editing and rewriting this chapter for so goddamned long that I'm just sick of looking at it. I hope you don't hate it!
> 
> And to everyone who has taken the time to read this weird little thing I'm writing: thank you, thank you, thank you! I live for your kindness and patience and all-around awesomeness!


	5. Hear this Song that I Sing

Sansa spares a moment’s gratitude for the sturdy wool of her dress. In Winterfell, and then in White Harbor, she wore it near every day, for it was as necessary against the burn and freeze of winter as a knight’s armor against the bite of steel and arrows. Some nights, she trudged the walls sleeplessly for so long the skirt would crust with ice, so she would peel it off like bark from a birch tree to thaw and dry. Others, it was a second skin, and to part with it would have been as offensive as peeling away her flesh with a flaying knife, so whether she collapsed dreamlessly in her own bed or curled up snug in Arya’s, she kept it on. And by the time she crawls through the empty hearth, this dress has seen her safely to the end of another long night. Through the wide window here, she can see it is near dawn—little tendrils of pale light creep above the horizon—so she rubs the ash and grime from her hands against the folds of heavy fabric and returns to her bedchamber, quiet as she can manage.

Though she is bone weary, her mind races like a bridled courser fueled largely by the sweet ache that lingers between her legs. He surrounds her like a tempest. She has only to think of the scrub of his beard, of the way he cried her name, before a grin has her lips curling with insolence. She has only to think of the blossom and wilt of his smile before gloom has smothered her secret triumph. She has only to think of the few remaining hours that separate her from the trial before fear overpowers all else to claw at her throat.

Even the black of her chamber is a treasonous reminder—of another bedchamber many years past, of a windowless cell buried deep—and so without a passing thought for undressing she throws herself atop her featherbed. Soon enough, that black is indistinguishable from the black behind her heavy eyelids, and she slips into sleep as easily as one glides into a clear, cool pond: reluctantly, then all at once. Her dreams are formless things, a shifting scene of white mist rising and green flame dancing and purple silk swelling, and above it all, a great shadow threatening. She is airy in this place, insubstantial, and she floats at the mercy of a cruel wind.

A sharp knock upon her door rouses Sansa, and for a moment, while she lingers in that slow, fuzzy place between dreams and awakening, she fights a flare of fear that her sins have been discovered, but it is only her chambermaid come to bring a simple meal and to inquire if she should care for a hot bath. Sansa pauses to feel the clenching in her woman’s place, the wetness that still lingers there, and declines.

Instead, she carries the tray into the small solar that adjoins, and sets it at the gilded table by the window. While the room fills with the smell of smoked salmon, Sansa scrubs at her face with cold water until her cheeks are pink and smooth. While the porridge cools to lukewarm, she slips into a gown of dark grey silk, a smoky tumble of gentle layers about her chest, then long and flowing like waves breaking about her feet. While the ale warms, she brushes her hair until it shines, then gathers the long pieces that frame her face and twists them into a small knot at the base of her skull. Before she sits, she dons a ring set with blue onyx, a wedding gift from the Queen.

And then, there is naught else to do but to break her fast, and to wait. Absentminded, she cuts the larger of the fish into ever-smaller pieces, spreads sweet jam across a tear of barley loaf, and twirls her spoon through the congealed porridge, only taking small mouthfuls of each when the sickening apprehension calms for brief moments here and there. Through the window, she watches as the sun climbs higher and the city awakens. She can see plumes of smoke smattered across the skyline from kitchens and hearths and furnaces alike, can hear the bustling of carts and small voices from the courtyard below. She wonders if Daenerys will open the trial to the commons, and if any of them would even bother to attend.

But then, a quiet creaking interrupts her reverie—the door to her solar angling on its iron hinges. For half a heart’s beat, she supposes it is just her maid come to clear her scarcely touched meal, or mayhaps her husband wanting to escort her, but there was no knock. Her earlier fear returns like a deluge and in a haze of panic, she stands, swift, and snatches the knife from the table. It is small and blunt, and it is still covered in jam, but it is a knife nonetheless.

She watches, frozen, as a small, cloaked figure enters her room, and shuts the door.

“What do you want?” Sansa calls out, hardly more than the rustling of grass in a soft breeze.

The figure turns, and a familiar voice asks, “Sansa?”

When the cloak lifts, she is stunned. “ _Arya_?” Sansa exclaims, and she feels only relief as all of her terror drains away. “What are you _doing_?”

“Me?” Arya snickers, eyes dancing with mockery. “What are _you_ doing?” Her mouth twists and curls like a wet bedsheet when she exclaims, “Were you going to butter me to death?”

Sansa drops the knife with an irritated huff. “Do you always sneak around like this, or does it only please you to frighten _me_?”

“Mayhaps both,” her sister says through a grin.

 “Well, what do you want then?” she sighs.

Arya seems to be more interested in appraising the scarcely-touched meal rather than explaining herself, for she is already walking to Sansa’s table when she asks, “May I?”

“Yes, please do come in,” Sansa grumbles, “and help yourself to my meal while you’re at it.”

“Well I’m hungry, and you’ve been pecking at this for the better part of an hour,” Arya asserts around a mouthful of bread.

“I—sorry, have you been _watching_ me?” she sputters, incredulous. “How did you even know where my chambers are?”

Her sister shrugs, then says, “Obviously, and even if I hadn’t been, a halfwit could figure you’d be in the Tower of the Hand.”

“Why?” Sansa demands, then adds, “For how long?”

“Long enough to know that you rarely leave this tower,” Arya remarks with an infuriating flippancy, “except to wander about the Godswood and the Sept. Long enough to know that, for as often as you stay, your husband rarely returns.”

“Well,” Sansa sputters, “I do hope there was a point to all of this sneaking.”

“Gods, but I forgot how much you sound like her, sometimes,” her sister says, suddenly dour. “Mother, I mean.”

That makes it twice she has compared Sansa to their mother as though it is some great insult. “ _Arya_ ,” she wheedles, “surely you haven’t gone to all of this trouble just to steal my salmon?”

“Right, okay,” Arya relents, hands upraised. “Well, I suppose I’m here because Brienne says I’ve been unkind.”

Sansa laughs to imagine the warrior woman scolding her sister. “Is that so?”

“All of the talk about you coming home,” she answers sheepishly, “and that matter with Tyrion, as well. She says I’m not truly angry with _you_ , and that I ought to be more sympathetic.”

It is the closest she will get to an actual apology, Sansa knows, so she smiles. “You never have been one to hold your tongue. Often, I admire that in you, though I suppose it can have its disadvantages.”

“I just wanted you to know that…well, if you ever _did_ want to come home, I would help you,” Arya mumbles awkwardly. “I know of ways to hide, safe places, too. I could even teach you to fight, if you wanted.”

“That will not be necessary,” Sansa sighs, “but I’m grateful for the offer nonetheless. Now, would you like to join me? You may have as much salmon as you please.”

Her sister flashes a smirk before plopping into a chair. For a time, they settle into an easy silence, and Sansa finds her appetite much improved for the company. Though the porridge is cold, it is hearty and savory and not entirely unpleasant. And soon, Arya is telling her of Winterfell, as it is now: how the flowers in the glass gardens are just beginning to bud again, how the winter’s town grows emptier with each passing day, how some of the free folk Jon brought south with him have decided to stay for good and salvage the many abandoned farms and homesteads. And she tells Sansa of their family, too: how Bran visits, sometimes, but is distant, full of strange tidings and hollow smiles, and how no one quite knows where it is he goes once he’s left; how Rickon drives the new maester to madness with his temper and his obstinacy, and how he still insists on fighting with that strange spear he returned from Skagos with. It is sweet as lemon cakes and warm as spiced rum, to know that Winterfell thrives, that her family does well. And though she still feels that same hunger to return, Sansa gorges at this feast her sister has given her, so much so that she fights a flaring anger to hear a guard knock at her door.

“The Hand of the Queen, Lord Tyrion Lannister.”

And then her husband enters. He is dressed in finely tailored trousers of black linen, and a doublet of black leather embroidered with the dragon of House Targaryen and adorned with the pin of his station.

“Lady Sansa,” Tyrion says genially, “the time has come. Ah, and Lady Arya! I suppose I should not be shocked to find you here, of all places.” He smiles at them. “Mayhaps I will not ask you how it is you’ve found my wife’s chambers and only be glad that you’ve made yourself comfortable. Will you join us as we make our way to the Great Hall?”

“No, but I thank you all the same,” Arya says, her tone flat and guarded. She rises to leave, but Sansa is close behind, suddenly finding a dozen things she’d like to say to her sister, while there is still time to say them.

“A—a moment, if it please you, my Lord.”

“Sansa,” Tyrion grumbles, but she cuts him off with a easy smile.

“Please, Tyrion,” Sansa implores. “Just one moment.”

He looks between the pair of them, pondering, before relenting with a wave of his hand. “Fine. A moment, then,” he huffs, then exits.

She turns to her sister once the solar is empty. “I did what you asked,” she says. Arya merely crinkles her brow in confusion, so Sansa continues, “I thought about what you said to me.”

“And?”

“You were right, of course,” Sansa concedes, “though how you saw my own mind I can’t fathom.”

“It is not so difficult to guess, if one knows you well enough,” Arya smirks.

“I find that I cannot bring myself to regret it,” she sighs, “even if he is executed after all.”

“And what if he is not executed?” Arya asks.

Sansa meets her probing gaze with a glum smile. “Fear not, sweet sister, for I do not harbor any senseless fantasies. But…if the Queen decides to spare him death, or exile, would you consider…”

Arya’s eyes narrow with unease. “What?” she demands.

“Would you consider taking him North with you? To Winterfell?”

Suddenly, the warm and open sister she knew just moments past has vanished, and in her place is the suspicious and seething sister of the previous night. “Why should I?”

“Because he…he could help protect to Winterfell, I’m sure he would. Mayhaps he could even teach Rickon to fight properly—with a sword,” she adds feebly.

“Sansa,” Arya begins, but she cuts her off with a lifted hand.

“Mayhaps he has nowhere to go,” Sansa whispers, ashamed of the flush in her cheeks.

“Mayhaps you should have considered that _before_ you made a fool of yourself,” Arya spits. “I’ll consider it, but no more.”

“Thank you,” Sansa breathes.

Her sister’s only response is a scoff, and then Arya turns on her heel and leaves quickly, cloak billowing out behind her like a shadow dancing upon a turbulent lake. Sansa inhales and makes a vain attempt to stifle the anxiety that twists through her chest before she follows. When she reaches the entrance to the tower, she finds Tyrion waiting. Guards bearing the Lannister colors surround him, and one of his boots taps impatiently.

“Are you ready, then?” he asks, face pinched.

“Yes, my Lord,” Sansa consents, and takes her place at his side.

The sky is blue and clear as they walk together, but more rain must be coming, for the air is thick and heavy with moisture. By the time they reach the outdoor courtyard, the silk of her gown sticks to her skin in all manner of uncomfortable places. The Great Hall looms in the distance, and the kiss of a gentle wind against the bare skin of her arms gives her a sudden shiver.

“Sansa, I must leave you here,” Tyrion says suddenly, though they only stand at the bottom of the staircase that leads to the entrance. “I do hope when this is finished, we can leave all of the unpleasantness behind us.”

“Of course, my Lord,” she answers. He rises high on his toes, and Sansa leans down to allow him to kiss her cheek. “Thank you.”

“I shall see you shortly, my Lady,” he says, offering a curt nod before he veers off to her left where the rest of the Small Council must certainly be gathering.

Suddenly, she is alone in the midst of a sea of strangers. Dozens of noblemen and thrice as many from the commons pass, whether vindictive or simply apathetic she cannot guess, but regardless nary spare a second’s thought for her as they shove right through her. The doors to the Great Hall open wide like the yawning jaws of some skulking predator, but Sansa can hardly see inside for the brightness here in the courtyard. It is the dark unknown lurking within the red stone that feeds her fear, and the longer she stands, the more foreign any idea of movement becomes. In an instant, her heart thumps heavy against her ribs, and her breath comes in short, shallow puffs; knives twist through her gut, and her head is light and dizzy. Somehow, through this fog, she spies a bench across the courtyard, shaded by the canopy of a merchant’s stall, and her legs move her, one leaden step after another, in the wrong direction. If she can keep her head upright for a moment, just one moment longer, she’ll—

“Lady Sansa,” a voice calls, feminine and blessedly familiar, but faraway.

Sansa spins so quickly she nearly loses her feet, but an armored hand catches her. She looks up to see Ser Podrick Payne squinting in the sunlight, and Lady Brienne just behind, her face warped with concern.

“Lady Brienne!” Sansa exclaims, her voice an unsteady whoosh of breath. “Ser Podrick! I had not thought to find you here.”

“Are you well, my Lady?” Ser Podrick asks, sliding his hand up to grasp her shoulder, a steadying gesture.

“Forgive me,” Sansa smiles weakly. “I fear I drank too much ale when I broke my fast, and the day is overwarm.”

“Yes, of course,” Brienne says with a probing sort of frown. “Your sister wandered off just before our own meal, but I am certain she will find her way. Shall we?”

“I thank you, Ser,” Sansa says to the young knight, stepping forward and out of his hold. “I shall be well once we are indoors.”

And despite the fear still threatens to paralyze her, she walks before the two of them, leading the short journey. The Queen’s Unsullied line the staircase, still and stoic and unblinking as though they are little more than statues cut from bronze. They are unnerving, these foreign soldiers, and they do naught to settle Sansa’s unease. Their captain stands before the open doors. He goes by Grey Worm, but despite the unassuming title, the man is known to be ferocious when provoked, and is one of the Queen’s most trusted advisors.

When Sansa approaches him, he gives a cursory bow, and says, “Lady Sansa,” though her name has a thin, sharp cast through his strange accent. She returns his gesture with a bobbed curtsy and allows her companions to enter before she passes.

The Great Hall is much changed from the last time Sansa entered. The main floor has been filled with long wooden benches, and already a selection of lords and ladies are scattered across them. On either side of the Iron Throne stand high-backed chairs. As her first sword, Ser Barristan Selmy will take the one to the Queen’s left, Sansa knows, while Tyrion will sit at her right. In the balconies, a great number of people mill about—merchants, traders, servants, and a handful of the Unsullied to keep the peace. And before the throne await two podiums. One has been outfitted with a thick black chain where shackles can be affixed, while the other is unadorned.

Brienne leads them to a bench at the front, and for some time, the three of them sit silently, waiting. Sansa stares at skulls that adorn the hall—though they vary greatly in size, all seem to wear an ominous smile, and she can feel their sightless gaze prickle at her skin, sharp as their ancient teeth. At some point, Sansa emerges from her haze just long enough to notice a shuffling next to her. She looks up to see her sister scowling, the benches far fuller, the balconies rowdier.

Without warning, the entrance doors shut, and as the boom of it echoes throughout the hall, the door behind the throne opens. The Small Council enter one by one—Tyrion leads, followed closely by Varys and Illyrio, then Ser Barristan, and finally, Grandmaester Marwyn. They stand afore their chairs, and then the Queen’s herald, a girl no older than Sansa was for her second marriage, takes her place at the steps that lead to the Iron Throne. Those who have been seated on the benches rise, and Sansa follows suit.

“Her Grace, Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen,” the girl calls, her voice clear and sweet as summer rain, “first of her name, Queen of the Andals, of the Rhoynar, and of the First Men, Protector of the Realm, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons, the Breaker of Chains.”

She comes through the same door as her council, straight and tense as a spear. The skirt of her gown is so stiff and unyielding that the Queen seems to float like some spirit as she climbs up to her throne. She lifts a hand, and as the Small Council takes their seats, so too do those in attendance.

“We are here today to bear witness to the evidence in defense of Sandor Clegane, the man called Joffrey’s Hound, and the Mad Dog,” Daenerys announces without preamble.

On her command, he enters. As before, he is surrounded by half a dozen of the Queen’s soldiers. But he looks different, here in the bare gleam of sunlight. Sandor walks with his head held high, though still with a visible limp, and still followed by the _scrape-clank_ of chains. She is surprised to see that he has been allowed to bathe. His face is clean-shaven, now—Sansa blushes to think of the coarse hair and how it scraped, lopsided—and he wears fresh linens. He is not quite the spectre she knew just hours ago, but then he is not quite the man he was before, either.

 _A moon’s turn in the Black Cells does little for a man’s spirit_ , Sansa thinks.

He is led to his podium, and once his fetters have been arranged, the Queen continues.

“It is known that some years past, a band of outlaws sacked the town of Saltpans. And it is known that their leader was personally responsible for the murder of two dozen, and the rape and mutilation of a girl so young, she had not yet flowered. The accounts survivors identify a distinctive helm worn by this brute—a snarling dog’s head. Sandor Clegane, have you ever seen such a helm?”

“You know well the helm was mine,” he sneers.

“But it was not you who led the raid?” Daenerys asks, stiff with decorum.

“Bloody well right it wasn’t,” Sandor spits, and his shackles clank for emphasis as his fists hit the podium.

“Why is it, then, that the reports of those few survivors all spoke of the Hound and his helm?” Ser Barristan demands.

Sandor laughs, short and harsh. “Fear twists the mind. You’ve seen your share of battle, Ser—tell me it is not so.”

“Do you truly intend to argue that these people share some delusion?” Daenerys asks, incredulous.

“I was half-dead from rot and half-mad from fever when I was supposedly raping little girls,” he growls. “By the time I woke up, half my thigh was gone, and in the care of the Elder Brother who healed me were all manner of survivors. Mayhaps they did see me, but it was after, not during.”

“I suppose you cannot produce this Elder Brother?” Tyrion wonders with a weary sigh.

“Dead.”

“Bloody convenient, that,” the Grandmaester frowns.

“And still you choose to proclaim your innocence?” the Queen asks.

He hesitates for a moment, and half-turns. From her place in the gallery, Sansa can see only the unharmed side of his face, but he is looking at the skull near his podium. It is larger than an ox cart, and its teeth are still sharp enough to puncture. “Aye,” he answers with apprehension.

The smile that Daenerys Targaryen wears is wry, and mayhaps a bit thin, when she proclaims, “Very well. Today we shall hear testimony, and then my Council and I shall determine the truth. Lady Sansa, since it was your outburst to bring us here, I suppose we shall start with you.”

Sansa glances to her sister, who still scowls, and then to Brienne, who gives a terse nod. She rises, and walks without thinking, her feet leading her by memory alone. Sandor still stands so that all those on the dais can see the scars his brother gifted him, and for half a heartbeat, he meets her eye. She cannot bear to look, not here, not now, not in the light that would reveal her to all who watch, so instead she stares at banners that hang behind the throne—the black of a moonless night, the red of wet, wet blood. When finally she arrives at the second podium, her husband addresses her directly.

“Do you swear, my Lady, to speak only truth as you know it, here in the presence of the Queen and her council?”

Though her hands tremble like the last of the autumn leaves, her voice is steady when she replies, “I do so swear it, my Lord.”

Tyrion gives her a sharp nod. “Good. Tell us, then, what testimony you intend to give.”

Sansa meets the eye of the Queen and all of her councillors as her lungs fill with a timorous breath. “I mean to reveal the true character of this man, Sandor Clegane. He was known to me, the last time I lived in King’s Landing, and he did not commit these crimes.”

“You say this as though you were present, but were you not in the Vale of Arryn when this transpired?” Tyrion asks, though he knows the answer already.

“Yes, my Lord Hand,” she replies. “It is true that I was hiding from the Crown under a false name. I was in the protection of my mother’s sister, Lady Lysa Arryn, and Lord Petyr Baelish,” Sansa answers, and with a cool demeanor, adds, “that snake who organized the murder of Joffrey the Bastard. A crime that I once stood accused of. A crime that _you_ were sentenced to die for.”

“Ah, yes,” Tyrion says with the briefest flicker of amusement, “how clever of you to remind us.”

“We are here to discuss the Hound,” Daenerys interrupts, “ _not_ the Hand of the Queen. You would do well to remember that, Lady Sansa.”

“Of course, your Grace,” Sansa answers, head bowed modestly. “It is true, my Lord, that I did not witness the events.”

“Then how can you be so sure that it was _not_ this man?” Grandmaester Marwyn demands.

“Because my sister, Lady Arya, spent some time travelling with Sandor Clegane, and she left him for dead, just before. And because I knew him. He is not the sort of man any of you believe him to be.” She is proud at how even her voice is, for every hidden piece of her shudders with uncertainty. “Sandor Clegane helped me to survive King’s Landing.”

“Go on,” Ser Barristan barks when she pauses.

“He helped me to understand Joffrey’s true nature,” Sansa begins, timid. She walks a knife’s edge, here—she must not reveal too much of herself, but she must also make them understand. “I believed him to be everything I’d ever dreamed of, when we were first betrothed. I believed him to be everything the songs and stories my nursemaid fed me had promised—handsome and gallant, courteous and kind, brave, and above all, _good_. I believed that I loved him, and that he loved me, but I was a fool.”

“You were a _child_ , my Lady,” Tyrion says gently, and she gives him a wistful smile in thanks.

“But a fool, nonetheless,” she quips. “When my father was arrested for treason, I begged Joffrey to show him mercy. ‘A quick death is merciful,’ was what he told me when he dragged me to see his—my father’s…remains. My grief and my fear clouded my mind, but it was Sandor Clegane to make me see my danger for true. He—he told me to do as I was bid, and to give Joffrey what he wanted.”

“Astute, mayhaps, but any in King’s Landing could have told you the same,” her husband answers with a calloused dismissal, eyes pressed thin at some conjured offense.

“Yet the none of them did,” Sansa retorts, meeting her husband’s gaze, “and of all the knights and lords and ladies in this whole city, it was only Sandor Clegane who dared help me.”

The hall rings with whispers, but the Small Council is silent. Varys and Illyrio exchange disbelieving smirks. Marwyn and Ser Barristan regard Sandor with a look of shrewd curiosity. Tyrion, at least, has the grace to look thoroughly rebuked. Of them all, only Daenerys Targaryen looks at Sansa straight on, but she is inscrutable.

“How else did the Hound help you, my Lady?” the Queen asks, and now the edge to her has gone a bit duller.

“There was a riot in the city,” Sansa tells her. “The commonfolk, they were hungry and angry, so they rose up when the royal procession passed and in the madness, I was separated from my guard. A man tried to pull from my horse, and…I would’ve been ruined, had I survived, but Sandor Clegane, he…he came back for me and he chased them off. He saved my life.”

“Ah, yes,” Varys sighs, mournful, “the bread riots. A dreadful ordeal. We were all so glad to see you returned unharmed, Lady Sansa.”

“I do recall, my Lady,” her husband says carefully, “that I commanded all of the Kingsguard to retrieve you, once we were safely back in Maegor’s. One could argue that the Hound was simply following orders.”

“Mayhaps, my Lord,” Sansa replies coolly. She can feel her temper clawing at their dismissiveness. “Joffrey loved to punish me for my brother Robb’s victories against the Lannister forces. He’d drag me to this very room—I’m sure many of you may recall—and when he’d order me beaten and bloodied, the members of the Kingsguard complied without hesitation, and yet Sandor Clegane never once raised his hand to strike me.”

“An awful affair, and all of us so helpless as to stop it,” Varys bemoans, and in that moment Sansa should like nothing more than to rip out his silver tongue.

“And yet none so helpless as I was,” she snaps, pausing just long enough to bite her cheeks and tamp down her outrage. “When I fancied myself brave and nearly pushed Joffrey to his death, it was Sandor Clegane who stepped between and stopped me. When Ser Boros Blount tore half my dress away, it was Sandor Clegane who gave me his own cloak so that I might cover my nakedness.”

“Forgive me, my Lady,” Tyrion says, and when his lips twist into a grimace, she cannot be sure whether he is truly remorseful or simply masking his amusement. “I knew this man as well, and still I cannot reckon your rememberings with mine own. The Hound was well-known as a fine swordsman, yes, but a wanton drunk with a horrible temper and a most unpleasant disposition.”

“Indeed,” Ser Barristan says with a sullen growl. “It was a disgrace, the day that idiot boy and his scheming mother stripped me of my cloak and gave it to him.”

“And what would you have done differently, Lord Commander?” Sansa inquires, helpless against the acid in her voice, and it feels so _good_ to let her temper reveal itself. “Mayhaps you would not have put your own hands upon me, but would you have put a stop any of it? And even if you had dreamed of it, how? He was the king, you see. Would you have fancied yourself a kingslayer? Put your blade across Joffrey’s throat?”

All of the blood flees Ser Barristan’s weathered face, and the throne room is silent as a tomb. For a time, Sansa focuses upon her breath— _in and out, in and out_. “I do not mean to contradict you, my Lord Hand,” she continues once the red hot anger has cooled. “Sandor Clegane was exactly as you say, but he is more than that, too.”

“Your passion is inspiring, Lady Sansa,” Varys says, his voice smooth as well-churned butter. “All of us should aspire to seek the good where there is good to be found. But, my dear, I fail to see how any of this is meant to influence our decision regarding this man’s fate.”

“Indeed,” Illyrio echoes. “His behavior over a decade past has no place in this trial.”

Sansa pauses to meet the eye of every council member, and she orders her words with caution. “My Lords, your Grace, I do not speak only for the sake of speaking. What happened in Saltpans—it is only a true monster who could do such vile things, and Sandor Clegane is no monster. If he were, he should have had no care at all for the well-being of a traitor’s daughter.”

“My dear Lady,” Varys expounds with a beatific smile, “you were a hostage, frightened and—one must assume—sore lacking for an ally. And above all, you were but a young maid. It is true that Sandor Clegane rescued you from the mob that day, but by your own admission you were naïve. How are we to trust that you do not misremember? How are we to believe that in your grief and fear, you did not simply create a more pleasing story to remember?”

Sansa flushes at his veiled accusation, though with self-doubt rather than affront. The Spider is closer to the mark than he could ever imagine. _If I misremembered his kiss_ , she thinks, _how can I be certain I have not misremembered all?_ But before she can muster a composed reply, her husband is speaking for her.

“If you wish to call Lady Sansa a liar, or even simple, then do this court the courtesy of saying so, Lord Varys,” Tyrion hisses, face twisted in a scowl.

“Forgive me, my Lord Hand, if I have caused offense. I do not mean to insult your sweet wife,” Varys answers with a placating smile, and with his arms clasped before him, he almost appears pious.

“I do _not_ misremember, my Lord,” Sansa retorts with a hollow confidence, “but if you believe me silly enough to invent such a great number of things, then I fear my opinion on this matter is rather pointless, no? Fortunately, my sister has travelled from Winterfell to testify on the matter of Sandor Clegane’s innocence, and I think you shall find her far less silly than I.”

“Have you no further testimony to give, Lady Sansa?” the Queen asks.

“No, your Grace, for the rest of this story is not mine to tell.”

“Very well. Step down, Lady Sansa, and in your place we will hear from Lady Arya of House Stark.”

“Thank you, your Grace, my Lords,” Sansa says, offering a hurried curtsy.

She allows herself one fleeting look before she makes her way back to the bench where her companions wait. His face is blank as fresh parchment, but when his eyes find her own, they are so unbearably bright. She turns quickly and looks to the tiled floor, praying silently that none have caught the flush near glowing about her cheeks. By the time she reaches her seat, Sansa has composed herself enough to take in stride the bemused expressions her sister and their friends wear.

“You spoke well,” Brienne says softly, offering a half smile.

“Not well enough, I fear,” Sansa whispers, then watches as Arya picks her way through the benches.

“Please approach, Lady Arya,” Daenerys commands. When her sister stands at the podium, the Queen says, “Your sister believes that you have evidence to give relevant in the sentencing of Sandor Clegane.”

“My sister is correct,” Arya grumbles reluctantly.

“Very good,” Tyrion says. “Do you swear, then, to speak only truth as you know it, here in the presence of the Queen and her council?”

“I do,” Arya answers.

“Please explain how it is you came to know Sandor Clegane,” the Queen instructs.

“It was not willingly, I can assure you. He stole me,” her sister retorts, “meant to ransom me to my brother.”

There is an uncomfortable pause before Ser Barristan Selmy prods, “From _where_ did the Hound steal you, my Lady?”

“Not from where, but from _whom_ ,” Arya smirks. “The brotherhood without banners.”

A murmuring rises up from the floor and floats about the hall like the shimmering air on a hot and humid day. And though the Queen and her council are not so overt in their disbelief, Varys wears a simpering grin when he asks, “The brotherhood without banners, my Lady?”

“I encountered them after I fled King’s Landing,” she replies coolly. “Once they realized who I was, they meant to ransom me as well.”

“You must have been quite valuable,” Marwyn smirks.

“They were outlaws, and they were desperate,” Arya spits, “and desperate men will do all manner of things to fill their pockets with gold and their bellies with food. My brother was a king, so I _was_ rather valuable.”

“I think, my Lady, you should start at the beginning of this tale,” Tyrion declares, “for I find it quite difficult to follow how a child came into the company of such a great number of wanted men.”

“As you wish, my Lord Hand,” Arya says, smirking beneath a mocking bow, and begins the arduous task of telling. Though she has heard of her sister’s journey many times, it has always been in snippets and fragments, and though Arya skips a great many details, Sansa marvels to see the whole tapestry unfurled in one sitting.

Arya begins with Yoren, detailing how he smuggled her from King’s Landing just after their father’s execution, how he cut away most of her hair and gave her the name Arry, told her to pose as a recruit for the Night’s Watch where Jon might have helped her, had any of them ever made it that far. She tells of the gold cloaks and Gendry, of Lommy and Hot Pie, and their subsequent flight through the Riverlands. She tells of the Mountain’s Men and Harrenhal, of the Tickler and the villagers, and of another daring escape. And she tells them of the brotherhood, too, of Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr and their Red God, of Sandor Clegane’s capture and trial and exoneration. And finally, she tells them how he stole her.

Sansa has become so absorbed in her sister’s recounting that by the time her focus returns to the throne room, the majority of the story is behind them and now her husband is speaking.

“You say he intended to ransom you back to your brother, then?”

“Yes,” Arya replies, her voice suddenly unsteady. “The talk of my uncle’s wedding had spread all across the Riverlands, and…and he meant to unburden himself at the Twins.”

Sansa gasps aloud with horror and nearly rises, intending to rush the podium and grasp her sister so tightly, but Brienne knows, wraps a warm hand around Sansa’s wrist.

“We arrived just in time to watch the Freys and the Boltons slaughter my brother’s army.” Arya’s voice is thick as wool, and Sansa can scarcely hear a word she says for the ringing in her ears. “I—I tried to run into the castle. Grey Wind was howling, and I thought…I thought maybe I could…but the Hound rode me down and smuggled me away.”

Though most of the council members continue to question her sister on the matter, the gallery is somber, while the Queen and her Hand both regard Arya with worried expressions. She has gone pale and thin with the pain of remembering, and Sansa can see her small frame shivering with the effort of maintaining her composure. She wants so badly in that moment to take it all back at once, to have never begged her sister to come here.

“Are you all right, my Lady?” Brienne mumbles, and Sansa is surprised to find herself weeping freely.

“She always just said…that they were too late,” Sansa whispers, aghast. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I was so angry with him,” Arya is saying, “that he stopped me from…but I suppose I ought to have been grateful. I would’ve been killed, or worse. I suppose he saved my life.”

“She wished to spare you, mayhaps,” Brienne answers uncertainly. “Or she didn’t wish to speak of it all.”

Someone is asking her sister a question—perhaps Illyrio, or is it the Queen?—but Sansa is only half listening when Arya replies, “He thought my aunt in the Eyrie would pay for me, but it was too dangerous…”

“I can’t believe she never told me.” Brienne gives her hand a gentle squeeze, and Sansa wills her tears to stop, lest she disgrace herself further.

She cannot help but observe him, now. His head is downcast as though he is ashamed, though why he should be is a mystery, and his chains rattle now and then as he fidgets uncomfortably. She wonders what he is thinking at this moment, if he can feel her gaze upon him as keenly as she has always felt his. She wishes he would look at her.

“…they were the Mountain’s Men, I had seen some of them in Harrenhal…” Arya says, but this is the part of the story Sansa knows best, and she allows her attention to wander. She watches the Small Council’s faces when Arya tells them how Sandor was, “…drunk, and so he took a wound to his leg.” She gazes around the gallery while Arya explains, “It festered, he wouldn’t clean it proper…” And she sees Sandor’s broad shoulders rise and full under a great sigh as Arya says, “He begged me to end him, but I left him there to die on his own.”

“And when did this occur, in relation to the crimes the Hound has been accused of?” the Queen asks, shrewd.

“Just before,” her sister replies, crossing her arms with such finality that she must think she can end the interrogation with the gesture.

“How you can be so certain?” Ser Barristan wonders.

“Because the very day I left him there, I booked passage on a ship bound for Braavos from Saltpans. I can assure you that when I set sail, the city was whole,” Arya retorts. “And by the time I crossed under the Titan, all of the Westerosi ships carried the stories along with their cargo.”

“A fascinating account, my Lady,” Varys sighs. “And yet, you are no more able to account for the Hound’s whereabouts than your sister was.”

Suddenly, the trembling has returned, and the heavy dread that Sansa has carried this past month grows heavy as a boulder. “No,” she whispers.

“I thank you, Lady Arya, for your testimony on this matter,” Daenerys says, sharing a strange look with Tyrion. “You have confirmed for us that the Hound was indeed grievously wounded, but Lord Varys makes a keen argument. Can you say without doubt that the Hound was still infirm when Saltpans was raided?”

“Not without doubt, your Grace,” Arya admits.

“Then it is as I suspected. You are dismissed.”

Arya is silent as she returns to their bench, and though Sansa feels little more than a wisp of smoke, she grasps her sister’s hand as soon as she is close enough to touch, and for once, Arya does not push her away.

“I have heard all manner of testimony,” the Queen declares, addressing all present, “and this matter is nearly settled, but I do have one final question for you, Sandor Clegane.”

He lifts his head slowly. “Aye, your Grace,” he rasps.

“How do you suppose this as-yet unidentified person came into possession of your helm?”

“I suppose that the Elder Brother of the Quiet Isle stripped my armor before he healed me,” Sandor shrugs, and he feels the same dread, she knows he must, for his voice is heavy with it, a low growl.

Grandmaester Marwyn is saying something, and the Queen’s response has the people surrounding them chuckling, but Sansa is distracted. A voice near her exclaims, “ _My Lady!”_ Sansa turns to her right and finds Ser Podrick Payne looking positively stricken, staring at Brienne with wide eyes.

“ _Pod_ ,” Brienne hisses, but the knight disregards her ire and pulls her close so that he can whisper frantically. And after a moment, all of the creases and frowns are melting from the warrior woman’s face until she stares straight ahead, mouth agape. “Seven hells,” she curses, perhaps too loudly, for many turn to look at her.

“What is it?” Arya asks, her face wrinkled in confusion.

“ _The Bloody Mummers_ ,” Brienne gasps, and then she stands so quickly that Sansa nearly tumbles off the bench.

Silence spreads through the Great Hall falls as all eyes turn to the warrior woman. The Small Council stare, dumbstruck, but the Queen is positively glowing with fury.

“Forgive me, your Grace,” Brienne says hastily, “I mean no disrespect.”

“Is that so?” Daenerys jeers. “Would you care to inform me who it is that interrupts my court?”

“Lady Brienne of the House Tarth, if it please your Grace.”

“It most certainly does _not_ please me. This is the Queen’s court, not a mummer’s show.”

“Of course, your Grace.”

“And did you enter my city—my throne room—with the intent to disrupt this trial?”

“Not at all, your Grace,” Brienne flinches. “I came only as escort to Lady Arya.”

“Then what is it that moves you to cause such a scene?”

Brienne hesitates a moment, no doubt fearful of the Queen’s wrath, before saying, “I believe I…I know _exactly_ who it is that stole the Hound’s helm.”

The gallery explodes as all present speak over one another. Some are outraged, some are excited, but most are just bewildered. The Queen is having a quiet conversation with her councillors, and Sansa sees her husband throw his hands up as if in defeat, while Varys and Illyrio seem positively ravenous.

Finally, Ser Barristan steps forward. “Enough!” he shouts, and the silence returns at once.

The Queen looks to Sandor in disbelief, then to Brienne with a scowl. “It would seem that the matter of your innocence inspires passion from all manner of women, though none of us should have guessed. Very well, Lady Brienne of the House Tarth. You may approach.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend to leave you on a cliffhanger, but this chapter got very long very quickly, and I had to catch my breath. But if you've read the books, I'm sure you'll be able to guess where this is headed. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me! You're all so lovely!


End file.
